But Gilbert had fancied
his friend's nature was still a noble one in spite of the comparative
failure of his life. It was very difficult for him to imagine it possible
that this friend could act falsely and ungenerously, could steal his
betrothed from him, and keep the secret of his guilt, pretending to
sympathise with the jilted lover all the while.
But though Mr. Fenton told himself at one moment that this was
impossible, his thoughts travelled back to the same point immediately
afterwards, and the image of John Saltram arose before him as that of his
hidden foe. He remembered the long autumn days which he and his friend
had spent with Marian--those unclouded utterly happy days, which he
looked back upon now with a kind of wonder. They had been so much
together, Marian so bright and fascinating in her innocent enjoyment of
the present, brighter and happier just then than she had ever seemed to
him before, Gilbert remembered with a bitter pang. He had been completely
unsuspicious at the time, untroubled by one doubtful thought; but it
appeared to him now that there had been a change in Marian from the time
of his friend's coming--a new joyousness and vivacity, a keener delight
in the simple pleasures of their daily life, and withal a fitfulness, a
tendency to change from gaiety to thoughtful silence, that he had not
remarked in her before.
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