CHAPTER XIX.
GILBERT ASKS A QUESTION.
Gilbert Fenton called at John Saltram's chambers within a day or two of his return from Hampshire.

He had a strange, almost feverish eagerness to see his old friend again; a sense of having wronged him for that one brief moment of thought in which the possibility of his guilt had flashed across his mind; and with this feeling there was mingled a suspicion that John Saltram had not acted quite fairly to him; that he had kept back knowledge which must have come to him as an intimate ally of Sir David Forster.
He found Mr.Saltram at home in the familiar untidy room, with the old chaos of books and papers about him.

He looked tired and ill, and rose to greet his visitor with a weary air, as if nothing in the world possessed much interest for him now-a-days.
"Why, John, you are as pallid as a ghost!" Gilbert exclaimed, grasping the hand extended to him, and thinking of that one moment in which he had fancied he was never to touch that hand again.

"You have been at the old work, I suppose--overdoing it, as usual!" "No, I have been working very little for these last few days.

The truth is, I have not been able to work.