upon the gentleman. William Carley has been bailiff at the Grange these
twenty years, and I don't believe as the owner has ever come nigh the
place in all that time. Let me see,--it's a common name enough, though
the gentleman is a baronight. Forster--that's it--Sir something Forster."

"Sir David?" cried Gilbert.

"You've hit it, sir. Sir David Forster--that's the gentleman."

Sir David Forster! He had little doubt after this that the strangers at
the Grange had been Marian and her husband. Treachery, blackest treachery
somewhere. He had questioned Sir David, and had received his positive
assurance that this man Holbrook was unknown to him; and now, against
that there was the fact that the baronet was the owner of a place in
Hampshire, to be taken in conjunction with that other fact that a place
in Hampshire had been lent to Mr. Holbrook by a friend. At the very first
he had been inclined to believe that Marian's lover must needs be one of
the worthless bachelor crew with which the baronet was accustomed to
surround himself. He had only abandoned that notion after his interview
with Sir David Forster; and now it seemed that the baronet had
deliberately lied to him. It was, of course, just possible that he was on
a false scent after all, and that it was to some other part of the
country Mr. Holbrook had brought his bride; but such a coincidence
seemed, at the least, highly improbable. There was no occasion for him to
remain in doubt very long, however. At the Grange he must needs be able
to obtain more definite information.