Gilbert did not appear particularly flattered by this compliment.  He received it at first with rather an angry look, and then, after a pause, was vexed with himself for having been annoyed by the man’s clumsy expression of sympathy—­for it was sympathy, no doubt, which Mr. Whitelaw wished to express.

“It has been sad work, so far,” he said.  “I suppose you can give me no hint, no kind of advice as to any step to be taken in the future.”

“Lord bless you, no sir.  Everything that could be done was done before you came here.  Mr. Holbrook didn’t leave a stone unturned.  He did his duty as a man and a husband, sir.  The poor young lady was drowned—­there’s no doubt about that.”

“I don’t believe it,” Gilbert said, with a quiet resolute air, which seemed quite to startle Mr. Whitelaw.

“You don’t believe she was drowned!  You mean to say you think she’s alive, then?” he asked, with unusual sharpness and quickness of speech.

“I have a firm conviction that she still lives; that, with God’s blessing, I shall see her again.”

“Well, sir,” Mr. Whitelaw replied, relapsing into his accustomed slowness, and rubbing his clumsy chin with his still clumsier hand, in a thoughtful manner, “of course it ain’t my place to go against any gentleman’s convictions—­far from it; but if you see Mrs. Holbrook before the dead rise out of their graves, my name isn’t Stephen Whitelaw.  You may waste your time and your trouble, and you may spend your money as it was so much water, but set eyes upon that missing lady you never will; take my word for it, or don’t take my word for it, as you please.”

Gilbert wondered at the man’s earnestness.  Did he really feel some kind of benevolent interest in the fate of a helpless woman, or was it only a vulgar love of the marvellous and horrible that moved him?  Gilbert leaned to the latter opinion, and was by no means inclined to give Stephen Whitelaw credit for any surplus stock of benevolence.  He saw a good deal more of Ellen Carley’s suitor in the course of his evening visits to the Grange, and had ample opportunity for observing Mr. Whitelaw’s mode of courtship, which was by no means of the demonstrative order, consisting in a polite silence towards the object of his affections, broken only by one or two clumsy but florid compliments, delivered in a deliberate but semi-jocose manner.  The owner of Wyncomb Farm had no idea of making hard work of his courtship.  He had been angled for by so many damsels, and courted by so many fathers and mothers, that he fancied he had but to say the word when the time came, and the thing would be done.  Any evidence of avoidance, indifference, or even dislike upon Ellen Carley’s part, troubled him in the smallest degree.  He had heard people talk of young Randall’s fancy for her, and of her liking for him, but he knew that her father meant to set his heel upon any nonsense of this kind; and he did not for a moment imagine it possible that any girl would resolutely oppose her father’s will, and throw away such good fortune as he could offer her—­to ride in her own chaise-cart, and wear a silk gown always on Sundays, to say nothing of a gold watch and chain; and Mr. Whitelaw meant to endow his bride with a ponderous old-fashioned timepiece and heavy brassy-looking cable which had belonged to his mother.