CHAPTER XX.
DRIFTING AWAY.
Gilbert Fenton found Jacob Nowell worse; so much worse, that he had been obliged to take to his bed, and was lying in a dull shabby room upstairs, faintly lighted by one tallow candle on the mantelpiece.

Marian was there when Gilbert went in.

She had arrived a couple of hours before, and had taken her place at once by the sick-bed.

Her bonnet and shawl were thrown carelessly upon a dilapidated couch by the window.

Gilbert fancied she looked like a ministering angel as she sat by the bed, her soft brown hair falling loosely round the lovely face, her countenance almost divine in its expression of tenderness and pity.
"You came to town alone, Marian ?" he asked in a low voice.
The old man was in a doze at this moment, lying with his pinched withered face turned towards his granddaughter, his feeble hand in hers.
"Yes, I came alone.