I dared not meet my poor
girl at her grandfather's, since in so doing I must risk an encounter
with you."
After this they talked of Marian's disappearance for some time, going
over the same ground very often in their helplessness, and able, at last,
to arrive at no satisfactory conclusion. If she were with her father, she
was with a bad, unscrupulous man. That was a fact which Gilbert Fenton no
longer pretended to deny. They sat talking till late, and parted for the
night in very different spirits.
Gilbert had a good deal of hard work in the City on the following day; a
batch of foreign correspondence too important to be entrusted to a clerk,
and two or three rather particular interviews. All this occupied him up
to so late an hour, that he was obliged to sleep in London that night,
and to defer his return to Hampton till the next day's business was over.
This time he got over his work by an early hour, and was able to catch a
train that left Waterloo at half-past five. He felt a little uneasy at
having been away from the convalescent so long though he knew that John
Saltram was now strong enough to get on tolerably without him, and that
the people of the house were careful and kindly, ready at any moment to
give assistance if it were wanted.
"Strange," he thought to himself, as the train approached the quiet,
river-side village--"strange that I should be so fond of the fellow, in
spite of all; that I should care more for his society than that of any
man living.
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