He had only to travel from place to place, making careful inquiries at post-offices and in all likely quarters at every stage of his journey.

He went straight to Winchester, having a fancy for the quiet old city and the fair pastoral scenery surrounding it, and thinking that Mr.Holbrook's borrowed retreat might possibly be in this neighbourhood.

The business proved even slower and more tedious than he had supposed; there were so many farms round about Winchester, so many places which seemed likely enough, and to which he went, only to find that no person of the name of Holbrook had ever been heard of by the inhabitants.
He made his head-quarters in the cathedral city for nearly a week, and explored the country round, in a radius of thirty miles, without the faintest success.

It was fine autumn weather, calm and clear, the foliage still upon the trees, in all its glory of gold and brown, with patches of green lingering here and there in sheltered places.

The country was very beautiful, and Gilbert Fenton's work would have been pleasant enough if the elements of peace had been in his breast.