Holbrook to believe in the writer's
faithful and brotherly affection for his wife, and to meet him in London
on an early occasion, in order that they might together concert fresh
means for bringing about her restoration to her husband and home. He
reminded Mr. Holbrook of his friendship for Captain Sedgewick, and that
good man's confidence in him, and declared himself bound by his respect
for the dead to be faithful to the living--faithful in all forgiveness of
any wrong done him in the past.
He went back to London cruelly depressed by the failure of his efforts,
and with a blank dreary feeling that there was little more for him to do,
except to wait the working of Providence, with the faint hope that one of
those happy accidents which sometimes bring about a desired result when
all human endeavour has been in vain, might throw a sudden light on
Marian Holbrook's fate.
During the whole of that homeward journey he brooded an those dark
suspicions of Mr. Holbrook which Ellen Carley had let fall in their
earlier interviews. He had checked the girl on these occasions, and had
prevented the full utterance of her thoughts, generously indignant that
any suspicion of foul play should attach to Marian's husband, and utterly
incredulous of such a depth of guilt as that at which the girl's hints
pointed; but now that he was leaving Hampshire, he felt vexed with
himself for not having urged her to speak freely--not having considered
her suspicions, however preposterous those suspicions might have appeared
to him.
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