“What have you done with her?” repeated Gilbert, in a low stern voice, with his grasp upon John Saltram’s arm.

“What have I done with her?  I forget.  She is gone—­I wanted my freedom; I felt myself fettered, a ruined man.  She is gone; and I am free, free to make a better marriage.”

“O God!” muttered Gilbert, “is this man the blackest villain that ever cumbered the earth?  What am I to think, what am I to believe?”

Again he repeated the same question, with a stem kind of patience, as if he would give this guilty wretch the benefit of every possible doubt, the unwilling pity which his condition demanded.  Alas! he could obtain no coherent answer to his persistent questioning.  Vague self-accusation, mad reiteration of that one fact of his loss; nothing more distinct came from those fevered lips, nor did one look of recognition flash into those bloodshot eyes.

The time at which this mystery was to be solved had not come yet; there was nothing to be done but to wait, and Gilbert waited with a sublime patience through all the alternations of a long and wearisome sickness.

“Talk of friends,” Mrs. Pratt exclaimed, in a private conference with the nurse; “never did I see such a friend as Mr. Fenting, sacrificing of himself as he do, day and night, to look after that poor creature in there, and taking no better rest than he can get on that old horsehair sofy, which brickbats or knife boards isn’t harder, and never do you hear him murmur.”

And yet for this man, whose, battle with the grim enemy, Death, he watched so patiently, what feeling could there be in Gilbert Fenton’s heart in all the days to come but hatred or contempt?  He had loved him so well, and trusted him so completely, and this was the end of it.

Christmas came while John Saltram was lying at death’s door, feebly fighting that awful battle, struggling unconsciously with the bony hand that was trying to drag him across that fatal threshold; just able to keep himself on this side of that dread portal beyond which there lies so deep a mystery, so profound a darkness.  Christmas came; and there were bells ringing, and festive gatherings here and there about the great dreary town, and Gilbert Fenton was besieged by friendly invitations from Mrs. Lister, remonstrating with him for his want of common affection in preferring to spend that season among his London friends rather than in the bosom of his family.

Gilbert wrote:  to his sister telling her that he had particular business which detained him in town.  But had it been otherwise, had he not been bound prisoner to John Saltram’s sick-room, he would scarcely have cared to take his part in the conventional feastings and commonplace jovialities of Lidford House.  Had he not dreamed of a bright home which was to be his at this time, a home beautified by the presence of the woman he loved?  Ah, what delight to have welcomed the sacred day in the holy quiet of such a home, they two alone together, with all the world shut out!