He went back to the Grange next day.  Again and again upon that miserable journey he acted over the scene which was to take place when he came to the end of it—­in spite of himself, as it were—­going over the words he was to say, while Marian’s face rose before him like a picture.  How was he to tell her?  Would not the very fact of this desolation coming to her from his lips be sufficient to make him hateful to her in all the days to come?  More than once upon that journey he was tempted to turn back, and to leave his dismal news to be told in a letter.

But when the fatal moment did at last arrive, the event in no manner realized the picture of his imagination.  Time was not given to him to speak those solemn preliminary words by which he had intended to prepare the victim for her deathblow.  His presence there, and his presence alone, were all sufficient to prepare her for some calamity.

“You have come back to me, and without him!” she exclaimed.  “Tell me what has happened; tell me at once.”

He had no time to defer the stroke.  His face told her so much.  In a few moments—­before his broken words could shape themselves into coherence—­she knew all.

There are some things that can never be forgotten.  Never, to his dying day, can Gilbert Fenton forget the quiet agony he had to witness then.

She was very ill for a long time after that day—­in danger of death.  All that she had suffered during her confinement at Wyncomb seemed to fall upon her now with a double weight.  Only the supreme devotion of those who cared for her could have carried her through that weary time; but the day did at last come when the peril was pronounced a thing of the past, and the feeble submissive patient might be carried away from the Grange—­from the scene of her brief married life and of her bitter widowhood.

She went with Ellen Whitelaw to Ventnor.  It was late in August before she was able to bear this journey; and in this mild refuge for invalids she remained throughout the winter.

Even during that trying time, when it seemed more than doubtful whether she could live to profit by her grandfather’s bequest, her interests had been carefully watched by Gilbert Fenton.  It was tolerably evident to his mind that Mr. Medler had been a tacit accomplice in Percival Nowell’s fraud; or, at any rate, that he had enabled the pretended Mrs. Holbrook to obtain a large sum of ready money with greater ease than she could have done had he, as executor, been scrupulously careful to obtain her identification from some more trustworthy person than he knew Percival Nowell to be.