“And she told them nothing of her intention to leave Lidford?”

“Not a word.”

This was all that Gilbert Fenton could learn.  His interview with the Rector lasted some time longer; but it told him nothing.  Whom next could he question?  He knew all Marian’s friends, and he spent the next day in calling upon them, but with the same result; no one could tell him her reason for leaving Hazel Cottage, or where she had gone.

There remained only one person whom he could question, and that was the old servant who had lived with Captain Sedgewick nearly all the time of his residence at Lidford, and whom Gilbert had conciliated by numerous gifts during his visits to Hazel Cottage.  She was a good-humoured honest creature, of about fifty, and had been devoted to the Captain and Marian.

After a good deal of trouble, Gilbert ascertained that this woman had not accompanied her young mistress when she left Lidford, but had taken service in a grocer’s family at Fairleigh.  Having discovered this, Mr. Fenton set off immediately for the little market-town, on foot this time, and with his mind full of the days when he and Marian had walked this way together.

He found the shop to which he had been directed—­a roomy old-fashioned emporium in the High-street, sunk three or four feet below the level of the pavement, and approached by a couple of steps; a shop with a low ceiling, that was made lower by bunches of candles, hams, bacon, and other merchandise hanging from the massive beams that spanned it.  Mr. Fenton, having duly stated his business, was shown into the grocer’s best parlour—­a resplendent apartment, where there were more ornaments in the way of shell-and-feather flowers under glass shades, and Bohemian glass scent-bottles, than were consistent with luxurious occupation, and where every chair and sofa was made a perfect veiled prophet by enshrouding antimacassors.  Here Sarah Down, the late Captain’s servant, came to Mr. Fenton, wiping her hands and arms upon a spotless canvas apron, and generally apologetic as to her appearance.  To this woman Gilbert repeated the question he had asked of others, with the same disheartening result.

“The poor dear young lady felt the Captain’s loss dreadfully; as well she might, when they had been so fond of each other,” Sarah Down said, in answer to one of Gilbert’s inquiries.  “I never knew any one grieve so deeply.  She wouldn’t go anywhere, and she couldn’t bear to see any one who came to see her.  She used to shut herself up in the Captain’s room day after day, kneeling by his bedside, and crying as if her heart would break.  I have looked through the keyhole sometimes, and seen her there on her knees, with her face buried in the bedclothes.  She didn’t care to talk about him even to me, and I had hard work to persuade her to eat or drink enough to keep life in her at this time.  When the days were fine, I used to try and get her to walk out a little, for