her kinswoman's dashing brougham.

The pretty little widow received Gilbert very graciously; but there was a
slight shade of melancholy in her manner, a pensiveness which softened
and refined her, Gilbert thought. Nor was it long before she allowed him
to discover the cause of her sadness. After a little conventional talk
upon indifferent subjects, she began to speak of John Saltram.

"Have you seen much of your friend Mr. Saltram since Sunday?" she asked,
with that vain endeavour to speak carelessly with which a woman generally
betrays her real feeling.

"I have not seen him at all since Sunday. He told me he was going back to
Oxford--or the neighbourhood of Oxford, I believe--almost immediately;
and I have not troubled myself to hunt him up at his chambers."

"Gone back already!" Mrs. Branston exclaimed, with a disappointed
petulant look that was half-childish, half-womanly. "I cannot imagine
what charm he finds in a dull village on the banks of the river. He has
confessed that the place is the dreariest and most obscure in the world,
and that he has neither shooting nor any other kind of amusement. There
must be some mysterious attraction, Mr. Fenton. I think your friend is a
good deal changed of late. Haven't you found him so?"

"No, Mrs. Branston, I cannot say that I have discovered any marked
alteration in him since my return from Australia. John Saltram was always
wayward and fitful. He may have been a little more so lately, perhaps,
but that is all."

"You have a very high opinion of him, I suppose?"