"So Marian told me. But I want to learn something more than that about him. Up to this moment he has been the most intangible being I ever heard of. Will you tell me who and what he is—his position in the world, and so on?"
"Humph!" muttered Sir David meditatively; "I don't know that I can tell you much about him. His position is like that of a good many others of my acquaintance—rather vague and intangible, to use the word you employed just now. He is not well off; he is a gentleman by birth, with some small means of his own, and he 'lives, sir, lives.' That is about all I can say of him—from a worldly point of view. With regard to his affection for Miss Nowell, I know that he loved her passionately, devotedly, desperately—the strongest expression you can supply to describe a man's folly. I never saw any fellow so far gone. Heaven knows, I did my best to argue him out of his fancy—urged your claim, the girl's poverty, every reason against the marriage; but friendly argumentation of that kind goes very little way in such a case. He took his own course. It was only when I found the business was decided upon, that I offered him my house in Hampshire; a place to which I never go myself, but which brings me in a decent income in the hands of a clever bailiff. I knew that Holbrook had no home ready for his wife, and I thought it would give them a pleasant retreat enough for a few months, while the honey and rose-leaves still sweetened the wine-cup of their wedded life. They have stayed there ever since, as you seem to know; so I conclude they have found the place agreeable. Confoundedly dreary, I should fancy it myself; but then I'm not a newly married man."
The Baronet gave a brief sigh, and his thoughts went back for a moment to the time when he too was in Arcadia; when a fair young wife was by his side, and when no hour of his existence seemed ever dull or weary to him. It was all changed now! He had billiards and whist, and horses and hounds, and a vast collection of gunnery, and great stores of wine in the gloomy arched vaults beneath the house, where a hundred prisoners had been kept under lock and key when Heatherly had fallen into the hands of the Cromwellian soldiery, and the faithful retainers of the household were fain to lay down their arms. He had all things that make up the common pleasures and delights of a man's existence; but he had lost the love which had given these things a new charm, and without which all life seemed to him flat, stale, and unprofitable. He could sympathise with Gilbert Fenton much more keenly than that gentleman would have supposed possible; for a man suffering from this kind of affliction is apt to imagine that he has a copyright in that species of grief, and that no other man ever did or ever can experience a like calamity. The same manner of trouble may come to others, of course, but not with a similar intensity. Others will suffer and recover, and find a balm elsewhere. He alone is constant until death!
"And you can tell me nothing more about Mr. Holbrook?" he asked after a pause.
"Upon my honour, nothing. I think you will do wisely to leave these two people to take their own way in the future without any interference on your part. You speak of watchful friendship and all that kind of thing, and I can quite appreciate your disinterested desire to befriend the woman whom you once hoped to make your wife. But, believe me, my dear Fenton, no manner of good can possibly come of your intervention. Those two have chosen their road in life, and must travel along it, side by side, through good or evil fortune. Holbrook would naturally be jealous of any friendship between his wife and you; while such a friendship could not fail to keep alive bitter thoughts in your mind—could not fail to sharpen the regret which you fancy just now is to be life-long. I have no doubt I seem to speak in a hard worldly spirit."
"You speak like a man of the world, Sir David," the other answered quietly; "and I cannot deny that there is a certain amount of wisdom in your advice. No, my friendship is not wanted by either of those two, supposing even that I were generous enough to be able to give it to both. I have learnt that lesson already from Marian herself. But you must remember that I promised her poor old grandfather—the man who died a few days ago—that I would watch over her interests with patient fidelity, that I would be her friend and protector, if ever the hour should come in which she would need friendship and protection. I am not going to forget this promise, or to neglect its performance; and in order to be true to my word, I am bound to make myself acquainted with the circumstances of her married life, and the character of her husband."
"Cannot you be satisfied with knowing that she is happy?"
"I have seen her, Sir David, and am by no means assured of her happiness."
"And yet it was a love-match on both sides. Holbrook, as I have told you, loved her passionately."
"That passionate kind of love is apt to wear itself out very quickly with some men. Your bailiff's daughter complained bitterly of Mr. Holbrook's frequent absence from the Grange, of the dulness and loneliness of my poor girl's life."