Thomas Stoneham laid this book before Gilbert, open at the page on which
Marian's marriage was recorded. Yes, there was the familiar signature in
the fair flowing hand he had loved so well. It was his Marian, and no
other, whom John Holbrook had married in that gloomy old church.

The signature of the bridegroom was in a stiff straight hand, all the
letters formed with unusual precision, as if the name had been written in
a slow laboured way.

Who could this John Holbrook be? Gilbert was quite certain that he had
never heard the name at Lidford, nor could he believe that if any
attachment between this man and Marian Nowell had existed before his own
acquaintance with her, Captain Sedgewick would have been so dishonourable
as to keep the fact a secret from him. This John Holbrook must needs,
therefore, be some one who had come to Lidford during Gilbert's absence
from England; yet Sarah Down had been able to tell him of no new visitor
at Hazel Cottage.

He copied the record of the marriage on a leaf in his pocket-book, paid
Mr. Stoneham a couple of ten-pound notes, and left the church. The
clerk's daughter was waiting for him in the little court outside, and
they went at once to the house where Miss Nowell had lodged during her
residence at Wygrove.

It was a house in a neat little terrace on the outskirts of the town; a
house approached by a flight of steep stone steps of spotless purity, and
a half-glass door, which opened at once into a bright airy-looking
parlour, faintly perfumed with rose-leaves and lavender mouldering in the
china vases on the mantelpiece. Here Gilbert was introduced to Miss Long,