"Very difficult. And if you had found him, the chances are that he would
have set his face against the child. Marian Nowell will have no need to
supplicate for protection from an indifferent father or a hard-hearted
grandfather, if she will be my wife.

"Heaven grant that she may love you as you deserve to be loved by her!"
Captain Sedgewick answered heartily.

He thought it would be the best thing that could happen to his darling to
become this young man's wife, and he had a notion that a simple,
inexperienced girl could scarcely help responding to the hopes of such a
lover. To his mind Gilbert Fenton seemed eminently adapted to win a
woman's heart. He forgot the fatality that belongs to these things, and
that a man may have every good gift, and yet just miss the magic power to
touch one woman's heart.




CHAPTER III.

ACCEPTED.


Mr. Fenton lingered another week at Lidford, with imminent peril to the
safe conduct of affairs at his offices in Great St. Helens. He could not
tear himself away just yet. He felt that he must have some more definite
understanding of his position before he went back to London; and in the
meantime he pondered with a dangerous delight upon that sunny vision of a
suburban villa to which Marian should welcome him when his day's work was