All that she had suffered during her confinement at Wyncomb seemed to fall upon her now with a double weight.

Only the supreme devotion of those who cared for her could have carried her through that weary time; but the day did at last come when the peril was pronounced a thing of the past, and the feeble submissive patient might be carried away from the Grange--from the scene of her brief married life and of her bitter widowhood.
She went with Ellen Whitelaw to Ventnor.

It was late in August before she was able to bear this journey; and in this mild refuge for invalids she remained throughout the winter.
Even during that trying time, when it seemed more than doubtful whether she could live to profit by her grandfather's bequest, her interests had been carefully watched by Gilbert Fenton.

It was tolerably evident to his mind that Mr.Medler had been a tacit accomplice in Percival Nowell's fraud; or, at any rate, that he had enabled the pretended Mrs.Holbrook to obtain a large sum of ready money with greater ease than she could have done had he, as executor, been scrupulously careful to obtain her identification from some more trustworthy person than he knew Percival Nowell to be.
Whether these suspicions of Gilbert's were correct, whether the lawyer had been actually deceived, or had willingly lent himself to the furtherance of Nowell's design, must remain, unascertained; as well as the amount of profit which Mr.Medler may have secured to himself by the transaction.

The law held him liable for the whole of the moneys thus paid over in fraud or error; but the law could do very little against a man whose sole earthly possessions appeared to be comprised by the worm-eaten desks and shabby chairs and tables in his dingy offices.