"Well, sir," Mr. Whitelaw replied, relapsing into his accustomed slowness, and rubbing his clumsy chin with his still clumsier hand, in a thoughtful manner, "of course it ain't my place to go against any gentleman's convictions—far from it; but if you see Mrs. Holbrook before the dead rise out of their graves, my name isn't Stephen Whitelaw. You may waste your time and your trouble, and you may spend your money as it was so much water, but set eyes upon that missing lady you never will; take my word for it, or don't take my word for it, as you please."
Gilbert wondered at the man's earnestness. Did he really feel some kind of benevolent interest in the fate of a helpless woman, or was it only a vulgar love of the marvellous and horrible that moved him? Gilbert leaned to the latter opinion, and was by no means inclined to give Stephen Whitelaw credit for any surplus stock of benevolence. He saw a good deal more of Ellen Carley's suitor in the course of his evening visits to the Grange, and had ample opportunity for observing Mr. Whitelaw's mode of courtship, which was by no means of the demonstrative order, consisting in a polite silence towards the object of his affections, broken only by one or two clumsy but florid compliments, delivered in a deliberate but semi-jocose manner. The owner of Wyncomb Farm had no idea of making hard work of his courtship. He had been angled for by so many damsels, and courted by so many fathers and mothers, that he fancied he had but to say the word when the time came, and the thing would be done. Any evidence of avoidance, indifference, or even dislike upon Ellen Carley's part, troubled him in the smallest degree. He had heard people talk of young Randall's fancy for her, and of her liking for him, but he knew that her father meant to set his heel upon any nonsense of this kind; and he did not for a moment imagine it possible that any girl would resolutely oppose her father's will, and throw away such good fortune as he could offer her—to ride in her own chaise-cart, and wear a silk gown always on Sundays, to say nothing of a gold watch and chain; and Mr. Whitelaw meant to endow his bride with a ponderous old-fashioned timepiece and heavy brassy-looking cable which had belonged to his mother.
CHAPTER XXIX
BAFFLED, NOT BEATEN
The time came when Gilbert Fenton was fain to own to himself that there was no more to be done down in Hampshire: professional science and his own efforts had been alike futile. If she whom he sought still lived—and he had never for a moment suffered himself to doubt this—it was more than likely that she was far away from Crosber Grange, that there had been some motive for her sudden flight, unaccountable as that flight might seem in the absence of any clue to the mystery.
Every means of inquiry being exhausted in Hampshire, there was nothing left to Gilbert but to return to London—that marvellous city, where there always seems the most hope of finding the lost, wide as the wilderness is.
"In London I shall have clever detectives always at my service," Gilbert thought; "in London I may be able to solve the question of John Holbrook's identity."