And then he told her, in a few words, the story of John Saltram's voyage to New York; making very light of the matter, and speaking cheerily of his early return.
"He will come back at once, of course, when he finds how he has been deceived," Gilbert said.
Marian was cruelly distressed by this disappointment. She tried to bear the blow bravely, and listened with a gentle patience to Gilbert's reassuring arguments; but it was a hard thing to bear.
"He will be back soon, you say," she said; "but soon is such a vague word; and you have not told me when he went."
Gilbert told her the date of John Saltram's departure. She began immediately to question him as to the usual length of the voyage, and to calculate the time he had had for his going and return. Taking the average length of the voyage as ten days, and allowing ten days for delay in New York, a month would give ample time for the two journeys; and John Saltram had been away more than a month.
Gilbert could see that Marian was quick to take alarm on discovering this.
"My dear Mrs. Saltram, be reasonable," he said gently. "Finding such a cheat put upon him, your husband would naturally be anxious to bring your father to some kind of reckoning, to extort from him the real secret of your fate. He would no doubt stay in New York to do this; and we cannot tell how difficult the business might prove, or how long it would occupy him."
"But if he had been detained like that, he would surely have written to you," said Marian; "and you have heard nothing from him since he left England."
"Unhappily nothing. But he is not the best correspondent in the world, you know."
"Yes, yes, I know that. Yet, in such a case as this, he would surely have written, if he were well." Her eyes met Gilbert's as she said this. She stopped abruptly, dismayed by something in his face.