“Why should I do so?” the lawyer demanded carelessly.

“It is Mrs. Holbrook’s business to look after her affairs.  The property is safe enough.  She can administer to the will as soon as she pleases.  I certainly wonder that the husband has not been a little sharper and more active in the business.”

“You have heard nothing of him, then, I presume?”

“Nothing.”

Gilbert remembered what Ellen Carley had told him about Marian’s keeping the secret of her newly-acquired fortune from her husband, until she should be able to tell it to him with her own lips; waiting for that happy moment with innocent girlish delight in the thought that he was to owe prosperity to her.

It seemed evident, therefore, that Mr. Holbrook could know nothing of his wife’s inheritance, nor of Mr. Medler’s existence, supposing the lawyer’s letter to have reached the Grange before Marian’s disappearance, and to have been destroyed or carried away by her.

He inquired the date of this letter; whereupon Mr. Medler referred to a letter-book in which there was a facsimile of the document.  It had been posted three days before Marian left the Grange.

Gilbert now proceeded to inform Mr. Medler of his client’s mysterious disappearance, and all the useless efforts that had been made to solve the mystery.  The lawyer listened with an appearance of profound interest and astonishment, but made no remark till the story was quite finished.

“You are right, Mr. Fenton,” he said at last.  “It is a bad business, a very bad business.  May I ask you what is the common opinion among people in that part of the world—­in the immediate neighbourhood of the event, as to this poor lady’s fate?”

“An opinion with which I cannot bring myself to agree—­an opinion which I pray God may prove as unfounded as I believe it to be.  It is generally thought that Mrs. Holbrook has fallen a victim to some common crime—­that she was robbed, and then thrown into the river.”

“The river has been dragged, I suppose?”

“It has; but the people about there seem to consider that no conclusive test.”

“Had Mrs. Holbrook anything valuable about her at the time of her disappearance?”

“Her watch and chain and a few other trinkets.”

“Humph!  There are scoundrels about the country who will commit the darkest crime for the smallest inducement.  I confess the business has rather a black look, Mr. Fenton, and that I am inclined to concur with the country people.”

“An easy way of settling the question for those not vitally interested in the lady’s fate,” Gilbert answered bitterly.

“The lady is my client, sir, and I am bound to feel a warm interest in her affairs,” the lawyer said, with the lofty tone of a man whose finer feelings have been outraged.

“The lady was once my promised wife, Mr. Medler,” returned Gilbert, “and now stands to me in the place of a beloved and only sister.  For me the mystery of her fate is an all-absorbing question, an enigma to the solution of which I mean to devote the rest of my life, if need be.”