He wasted two days at Lidford, making inquiries on this subject, in as
quiet a manner as possible and in every imaginable quarter; but without
the slightest result. No one either at Lidford or Fairleigh had ever
heard of Mr. Holbrook.

Gilbert's last inquiries were made in a singular direction. After
exhausting every likely channel of information, he had a few hours left
before the departure of the fast train by which he had determined to
return to London; and this leisure he devoted to a visit to Heatherly
Park, in the chance of finding Sir David Forster at home. It was just
possible that Mr. Holbrook might be one of Sir David's innumerable
bachelor acquaintances.

Gilbert walked from Lidford to Heatherly by that romantic woodland path
by which he had gone with Marian and her uncle on the bright September
afternoon when he first saw Sir David's house. The solitary walk awakened
very bitter thoughts; the memory of those hopes which had then made the
sunshine of his life, and without which existence seemed a weary
purposeless journey across a desert land.

Sir David was at home, the woman at the lodge told him; and he went on to
the house, and rang a great clanging bell, which made an alarming clamour
in the utter stillness of the place.

A gray-haired old servant answered the summons, and ushered Gilbert into
the state drawing-room, an apartment with a lofty arched roof, eight long
windows, and a generally ecclesiastical aspect, which was more suggestive
of solemn grandeur than of domestic comfort.