Gilbert Fenton left Mr.Medler's office a happier man than when he had entered it, and yet only half satisfied.
It was a great thing to know that Marian was safe; but he would have wished her in the keeping of any one rather than of him whom the world would have called her natural protector.
Nor was his opinion of Mr.Medler by any means an exalted one.

No assertion, of that gentleman inspired him with heart-felt confidence; and he had not left the lawyer's office long before he began to ask himself whether there was truth in any portion of the story he had heard, or whether he was not the dupe of a lie.
Strange that Marian's father should have returned at so opportune a moment; still more strange that Marian should suddenly desert the husband she had so devotedly loved, and cast in her lot with a father of whom she knew nothing but his unkindness.

What if this man Medler had been, lying to him from first to last, and was plotting to get old Jacob Nowell's fortune into his own hands?
"I must find her," Gilbert said to himself; "I must be certain that she is in safe hands.

I shall know no rest till I have found her." Harassed and perplexed beyond measure, he walked through the busy streets of that central district for some time without knowing where he was going, and without the faintest purpose in his steps.

Then the notion suddenly flashed upon him that he might hear something of Percival Nowell at the shop in Queen Anne's Court, supposing the old business to be still carried on there under the sway of Mr.Tulliver; and it seemed too early yet for the probability of any change in that quarter.
Gilbert was in the Strand when this notion occurred to him.