Saltram has betrayed as much in his wandering talk; but to the last there was no feeling but love for him in her heart.

Ellen Carley is my witness for that; nothing less than some foul lie could have tempted her away from him." In the meantime, pending the sick man's recovery, the grand point was to discover the whereabouts of Marian and her father; and for this discovery Gilbert was compelled to trust to the resources of the accomplished Proul.

So eager was he for the result, that if be could have kept a watch upon Mr.Medler's office with his own eyes, he would have done so; but this being out of the question, and the more prudent course a complete avoidance of the lawyer's neighbourhood, he could only await the result of his paid agent's researches, in the hope that Mr.Nowell was still in London, and would have need of frequent communication with his late father's solicitor.

The first month of the year dragged itself slowly to an end, and the great city underwent all those pleasing alternations, from snow to mud, from the slipperiness of a city paved with plate-glass to the sloppiness of a metropolis ankle-deep in a rich brown compound of about the consistency and colour of mock-turtle soup, which are common to great cities at this season; and still John Saltram lingered on in the shabby solitude of his Temple chambers, slowly mending, Mr.Mew declared, towards the end of the month, and in a fair way towards recovery.

The time came at last when the fevered mind began to cease from its perpetual wanderings; when the weary brain, sorely enfeebled by its long interval of unnatural activity, dropped suddenly into a state of calm that was akin to apathy.
The change came with an almost alarming suddenness.