We could not but think that Mrs.Holbrook had gone to meet some one that day, and that the letter had something to do with her going out.

I am sure she would not have gone beyond the garden and the meadow for pleasure alone.

She never had been outside the gate without me, except when she went to meet her husband." "Strange!" muttered Gilbert.
He was wondering about that letter: what could have been the lure which had beguiled Marian away from the house that day; what except a letter from her husband?
It seemed hardly probable that she would have gone to meet any one but him, or that any one else would have appointed a meeting on the river-bank.

The fact that she had gone out at an earlier hour than the time at which she had been in the habit of meeting her husband when he came from the Malsham station, went some way to prove that the letter had influenced her movements.

Gilbert thought of the fortune which had been left to Marian, and which gave her existence a new value, perhaps exposed her to new dangers.