What if this man Medler had been, lying
to him from first to last, and was plotting to get old Jacob Nowell's
fortune into his own hands?
"I must find her," Gilbert said to himself; "I must be certain that she
is in safe hands. I shall know no rest till I have found her."
Harassed and perplexed beyond measure, he walked through the busy streets
of that central district for some time without knowing where he was
going, and without the faintest purpose in his steps. Then the notion
suddenly flashed upon him that he might hear something of Percival
Nowell at the shop in Queen Anne's Court, supposing the old business to
be still carried on there under the sway of Mr. Tulliver; and it seemed
too early yet for the probability of any change in that quarter.
Gilbert was in the Strand when this notion occurred to him. He turned his
steps immediately, and went back to Wardour-street, and thence to the
dingy court where he had first discovered Marian's grandfather.
There was no change; the shop looked exactly the same as it had looked in
the lifetime of Jacob Nowell. There were the same old guineas in the
wooden bowl, the same tarnished tankards and teapots on view behind the
wire-guarded glass, the same obscure hints of untold riches within, in
the general aspect of the place.
Mr.
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