He made his head-quarters in the cathedral city for nearly a week, and
explored the country round, in a radius of thirty miles, without the
faintest success. It was fine autumn weather, calm and clear, the foliage
still upon the trees, in all its glory of gold and brown, with patches of
green lingering here and there in sheltered places. The country was very
beautiful, and Gilbert Fenton's work would have been pleasant enough if
the elements of peace had been in his breast. But they were not. Bitter
regrets for all he had lost, uneasy fears and wild imaginings about the
fate of her whom he still loved with a fond useless passion,--these and
other gloomy thoughts haunted him day by flay, clouding the calm
loveliness of the scenes on which he looked, until all outer things
seemed to take their colour from his own mind. He had loved Marian Nowell
as it is not given to many men to love; and with the loss of her, it
seemed to him as if the very springs of his life were broken. All the
machinery of his existence was loosened and out of gear, and he could
scarcely have borne the dreary burden of his days, had it not been for
that one feverish hope of finding the man who had wronged him.
The week ended without bringing him in the smallest degree nearer the
chance of success. Happily for himself, he had not expected to succeed in
a week.
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