John Saltram influenced others.  The rugged power and grandeur of that dark face, which vulgar critics denounced as plain and unattractive, the rare fascination of a manner that varied from an extreme reserve to a wild reckless vivacity, the magic of the deep full voice, with its capacity for the expression of every shade of emotion—­these were attributes to be passed over and ignored by the vulgar, yet to exercise a potent influence upon sensitive sympathetic natures.

“How that poor little Anglo-Indian widow loves him, without any effort to win or hold her affection on his side!” Gilbert said to himself, as he walked back to Lidford in the darkening November afternoon, brooding always on the one subject which occupied all his thoughts; “and can I doubt his power to supersede me if he cared to do so—­if he really loved Marian, as he never has loved Mrs. Branston?  What shall I do?  Go to him at once, and tell him my suspicion, tax him broadly with treachery, and force him to a direct confession or denial?  Shall I do this?  Or shall I bide my time, wait and watch with dull dogged patience, till I can collect some evidence of his guilt?  Yes, let it be so.  If he has been base enough to do me this great wrong—­mean enough to steal my betrothed under a false name, and to keep the secret of his wrong-doing at any cost of lies and deceit—­let him go on to the end, let him act out the play to the last; and when I bring his falsehood home to him, as I must surely do, sooner or later,—­yes, if he is capable of deceiving me, he shall continue the lie to the last, he shall endure all the infamy of his false position.”

And then, after a pause, he said to himself,—­

“And at the end, if my suspicions are confirmed, I shall have lost all I have ever valued in life since my mother died—­my plighted wife, and the one chosen friend whose companionship could make existence pleasant to me.  God grant that this fancy of mine is as baseless as Sir David Forster declared it to be!  God grant that I may never find a secret enemy in John Saltram!”

Tossed about thus upon a sea of doubts, Mr. Fenton returned to Lidford House, where he was expected to be bright and cheerful, and entertain his host and hostess with the freshest gossip of the London world.  He did make a great effort to keep up a show of cheerfulness at the dinner-table; but he felt that his sister’s eyes were watching him with a pitiless scrutiny, and he knew that the attempt was an ignominious failure.

When honest Martin was snoring in his easy-chair before the drawing-room fire, with the red light shining full upon his round healthy countenance, Mrs. Lister beckoned her brother over to her side of the hearth, where she had an embroidery-frame, whereon was stretched some grand design in Berlin wool-work, to which she devoted herself every now and then with a great show of industry.  She had been absorbed in a profound calculation of the stitches upon the canvas and on the coloured pattern before her until this moment; but she laid aside her work with a solemn air when Gilbert went over to her, and he knew at once what was coming.