Whether these suspicions of Gilbert’s were correct, whether the lawyer had been actually deceived, or had willingly lent himself to the furtherance of Nowell’s design, must remain, unascertained; as well as the amount of profit which Mr. Medler may have secured to himself by the transaction.  The law held him liable for the whole of the moneys thus paid over in fraud or error; but the law could do very little against a man whose sole earthly possessions appeared to be comprised by the worm-eaten desks and shabby chairs and tables in his dingy offices.  The poor consolation remained of making an attempt to get him struck off “the Rolls;” but when the City firm of solicitors in whose hands Gilbert had placed Mrs. Saltram’s affairs suggested this.  Marian herself entreated that the man might have the benefit of the doubt as to his complicity with her father, and that no effort should be made to bring legal ruin upon him.

“There has been enough misery caused by this money already,” she said.  “Let the matter rest.  I am richer than I care to be, as it is.”

Of course Mr. Medler was not allowed to retain his position as executor.  The Court of Chancery was appealed to in the usual manner, and intervened for the future protection of Mrs. Saltram’s interests.

About Nowell’s conduct there was, of course, no doubt; but after wasting a good deal of money and trouble in his pursuit, Gilbert was fain to abandon all hope of catching him in the wide regions of the new world.  It was ascertained that the woman who had accompanied him in the Orinoco as his daughter was actually his wife—­a girl whom he had met at some low London dancing-rooms, and married within a fortnight of his introduction to her.  It is possible that prudence as well as attachment may have had something to do with this alliance.  Mr. Nowell knew that, once united to him in the bonds of holy matrimony, the accomplice of his fraud would have no power to give evidence against him.  The amount which he had contrived to secure to himself by this plot amounted in all to something under four thousand pounds; and out of this it may fairly be supposed that Mr. Medler claimed a considerable percentage.  The only information that Gilbert Fenton could ever obtain from America was, of a shabby swindler arrested in a gambling-house in one of the more remote western cities, whose description corresponded pretty closely with that of Marian’s father.

There comes a time for the healing of all griefs.  The cruel wound closes at last, though the scar, and the bitter memory of the stroke, may remain for ever.  There came a time—­some years after John Saltram’s death—­when Gilbert Fenton had his reward.  And if the woman he won for his wife in these latter days was not quite the fresh young beauty he had wooed under the walnut-trees in Captain Sedgewick’s garden, she was still infinitely more beautiful than all other women in his eyes; she was still the dearest and best and brightest and purest