CHAPTER XV.
ON THE TRACK.
Gilbert Fenton saw no more of his friend John Saltram after that Sunday evening which they had spent together in Cavendish-square.

He called upon Mrs.Branston before the week was ended, and was so fortunate as to find that lady alone; Mrs.Pallinson having gone on a shopping expedition in her kinswoman's dashing brougham.
The pretty little widow received Gilbert very graciously; but there was a slight shade of melancholy in her manner, a pensiveness which softened and refined her, Gilbert thought.

Nor was it long before she allowed him to discover the cause of her sadness.

After a little conventional talk upon indifferent subjects, she began to speak of John Saltram.
"Have you seen much of your friend Mr.Saltram since Sunday ?" she asked, with that vain endeavour to speak carelessly with which a woman generally betrays her real feeling.
"I have not seen him at all since Sunday.

He told me he was going back to Oxford--or the neighbourhood of Oxford, I believe--almost immediately; and I have not troubled myself to hunt him up at his chambers." "Gone back already!" Mrs.Branston exclaimed, with a disappointed petulant look that was half-childish, half-womanly.