“Yes, I know all about that; but she hasn’t come yet to take possession; she doesn’t seem in such a desperate hurry about it.  I daresay she knows that things are safe enough.  Medler the lawyer is not the kind of party to be cheated out of sixpence.  He has taken an inventory of every article in the place, and the weight and value of every article.  Your friend Mrs. Holbrook needn’t be afraid.  I suppose she’s some relation of yours, by-the-bye, sir, judging by the interest you seem to take in her affairs?”

“Yes,” Gilbert said, not caring to answer this question directly, “I do take a warm interest in Mrs. Holbrook’s affairs, and I am very anxious to see her placed in undisputed possession of her late grandfather’s property.”

“I should think her husband would see after that,” Mr. Tulliver remarked with a sneer.

Gilbert left the court after having asked a few questions about Jacob Nowell’s funeral.  The old man had been buried at Kensalgreen, followed to the grave only by the devoted Tulliver, Mr. Medler, and the local surgeon who had attended him in his last illness.  He had lived a lonely friendless life, holding himself aloof from his fellow-creatures; and there were neither neighbours nor friends to lament his ending.  The vagabond boys of the neighbourhood had clustered round the door to witness the last dismal ceremony of Mr. Nowell’s existence, and had hung about the shop-front for some time after the funeral cortege had departed, peering curiously down into the darksome area, and speculating upon the hoards of wealth which the old miser had hidden away in coal-cellars and dust-bins, under the stone flags of the scullery, or in the crannies of the dilapidated walls.  There were no bounds to the imagination of these street Arabs, who had been in the habit of yelping and whooping at the old man’s heels when he took his infrequent walks abroad, assailing him with derisive epithets alluding to his miserly propensities.  Amongst the elders of the court there was some little talk about the dead man, and the probable disposal of his property, with a good deal of argument and laying down of the law on the part of the graver and wiser members of that community; some people affecting to know to a sixpence the amount of Jacob Nowell’s savings, others accrediting him with the possession of fabulous riches, and all being unanimous in the idea that the old man’s heir or heirs, as the case might be, would speedily scatter his long-hoarded treasures.  Many of these people could remember the silversmith’s prodigal son; but none among them were aware of that gentleman’s return.  They wondered a good deal as to whether he was still living, and whether the money had been left to him or to that pretty young woman who had appeared in the last days of the old man’s life, no one knowing whence she had come.  There was nothing to be gained from questioning Luke Tulliver, the court knew of old experience.  The most mysterious dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition, the secret chambers under the leads in Venice, were not closer or deeper than the mind of that young man.  The court had been inclined to think that Luke Tulliver would come into all his master’s money; and opinion inclined that way even yet, seeing that Mr. Tulliver still held his ground in the shop, and that no strangers had been seen to enter the place since the funeral.