"
"I wish I could, sir. No, I haven't the least idea where the gentleman
hangs out. Oysters ain't closer than that party. I thought he'd get his
paw upon his father's money, somehow, when I used to see him hanging
about this place. But I don't believe the old man ever meant him to have
a sixpence of it."
There was very little satisfaction, to be obtained from Mr. Tulliver; and
except as to the one fact of Percival Nowell's return, Gilbert left
Queen Anne's Court little wiser than when he entered it.
Brooding upon the revelations of that day as he walked slowly westward,
he began to think that Percival and Mr. Medler had been in league from
the time of the prodigal son's return, and that his own exclusion from
the will as executor, and the substitution of the lawyer's name, had been
brought about for no honourable purpose. What would a weak inexperienced
woman be between two such men? or what power could Marian have, once
under her father's influence, to resist his will? How she had fallen
under that influence so completely as to leave her husband and her quiet
country home, without a word of explanation, was a difficult question to
answer; and Gilbert Fenton meditated upon it with a troubled mind.
He walked westward, indifferent where he went in the perplexity of his
thoughts, anxious to walk off a little of his excitement if he could,
and to return to his sick charge in the temple in a calmer frame of mind.
Pages:
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489