Rogues and Vagabonds

by George R. Sims

ENTR’ACTE.

Five years have to pass by ere we meet the characters in this story again. Five years, with their many changes and strange vicissitudes. Old Time rolls on like a river, that flows, heedless of what it bears on its bosom, to the great sea—heedless of the wreckage that strews its banks—heedless of all that lies lost in the depths of its weed-tangled bed. Old Time rolls on, and bears its human freight nearer and nearer to the last haven.

They are a strange and motley group, whose ends destiny shapes during the years that elapse ere the curtain rises again on the little life drama that you and I, gentle reader, are waiting to see played out. In one of Her Majesty’s prisons a young man—a felon, with the bearing of a gentleman and the garb of a convict—counts the years as they go by and wonders what justice there can be in heaven that a cruel fate should raise this bar of shame between him and the young wife he loves. Up in the great city a woman toils wearily night and day, for a scant wage, to keep the wolf at bay, toiling for bare subsistence, and weeping over her work, when she thinks of the past that was happy, and of the fearful blow that dashed the cup of joy from her lips for ever. Only in her sleep sometimes she looks up, and the skies are bright, and a loving arm encircles her waist, and a musical voice whispers in her ear. ‘Bess, my darling, ’tis I—George!’

Out in Australia a burly grey-haired man keeps a low drink store, and upholds the reputation of the old country for thoroughpaced blackguardism. ‘Bully Heckett’ his customers call him, and his customers are as nice and select a lot as he could possibly wish to have, and they find him remarkably useful in more ways than one. He talks about going back to England ‘some day,’ and his customers say, ‘When the coast’s a bit clearer, eh, Bully?’ and laugh.

Among the Surrey hills there is a beautiful mansion, and there the new Squire Heritage and his lady pass their days in peace and contentment. Nothing has come to mar their happiness. Ruth’s greatest trouble was the death of her father. He died thanking God that his Ruth had found so good a husband and his old wife so kind and gentle a son. No children have blessed the union yet, but there is a young lady who lives with them, and who is their adopted daughter And there isn’t a prettier little lady for miles round, or one more beloved by the people on the estate and the villagers than ‘Miss Gertie up at the hall,’ as they call her. Gertie and Ruth attended by a faithful mastiff dog, who follows closely at their heels, and is almost as great a favourite as Gertie, are to be seen out on all the fine days, going hither and thither among the people and spreading happiness wherever their two kind faces are seen.

The squire does not go about so much, but he gives liberally to charities, never lets a poor man on his estate want when times are hard, and has the reputation of being a kindly Christian gentleman, rather grave and studious, and not fond of too much society. He goes out occasionally though to the best houses, gives a dinner party or two, and now and then there is a ball at the hall. He is a justice of the peace, goes to the parish church and idolizes the ground his wife treads upon.

The firm of Grigg and Limpett flourishes, though it has lost the services of Mr. Jabez Duck. The firm receives from time to time letters from its absent client, Mr. Gurth Egerton, who seems inclined to settle in America, and whose house is now occupied by Dr. Oliver Birnie, whose brass plate is very large, and whose practice has increased wonderfully with a West-End address.

There is no Mrs. Turvey. She has become Mrs. Duck, and she and Jabez have a lodging-house, and take in and do for single gentlemen.

Miss Georgina, having raised a little capital through the kindness of her friend, Miss Jackson, has taken the house exactly opposite to them, and started an opposition establishment. Miss Duck’s lodgers and Mrs. Duck’s lodgers each support the lady under whose banner they pay their rent, and the amenities exchanged across the street are frequently highly edifying to the neighbourhood. Jabez has been disappointed. Having married his lady in the firm belief that he was marrying a snug thousand pounds, he was bitterly disillusioned a few days after the fatal knot had been tied. The money he has never discovered, and Mrs. Turvey stoutly denies that it was hers.

This is at once the mystery and the misfortune of Mr. Duck’s married life. He has other mysteries and misfortunes to attend to, for he has left the law and entered the service of a private inquiry agent. His taste he determined to gratify: if he couldn’t be a principal, he would be an employé. He likes it better than the law, and he is getting quite clever at poking his nose into other people’s business. His talents always lay in that direction.

Mr. Preene still flourishes and pursues the even tenor of his way, but Mr. Brooks has paid the debt of nature, dying respectably in his bed, and leaving his widow a nice little competency. She was shortly afterwards united to a middle-aged and very hard-up Scripture-reader, who fell in love with her while reading the prayers for the sick by the bedside of her first husband at Mrs. Brooks’s special request. Perhaps the people who assisted to make Mrs. Brooks independent would have been resigned to their loss had they known it would ultimately benefit so devout a man.

So time works its changes, alters the scene, redresses the characters, and clears the stage during the five years entr’acte that elapses ere our curtain rises again.

CHAPTER LII.
AN ESCAPED CONVICT.

HULLOH!’ said Mr. Jarvis; ‘did you hear that gun? There’s another of them there conwicks escaped.’

‘Poor fellow!’ ejaculated Mr. Jarvis’s better half; ‘and I hope as he’ll get away.’

Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis were the proprietors of a travelling theatrical show, and this conversation occurred late one winter afternoon, as the caravan jolted along over the rough roads of Dartmoor.

Mr. Jarvis’s ‘temple of the drama,’ packed up very small, and the whole affair was very comfortably accommodated in two living-vans and a baggage-waggon.

Mrs. Jarvis was sitting inside the first van with the door open, and Mr. Jarvis was walking behind, to keep himself warm and to enjoy his afternoon pipe. The company had been dissolved at the last town, for the season was over, and the Jarvises were making their way as fast as they could to London, to complete their arrangements for a metropolitan circuit, with a new drama and a specially organized company.

Their last tour had not been a great success. The attendance at the country fairs had fallen off, and in small places where they had built the theatre up and stayed for a week, they had hardly cleared expenses. The new fashion of the London companies touring, combined with the number of first-class theatres rapidly rising in the provincial towns, was slowly but surely dealing a death-blow to the ‘booth’ business.

To add to the misfortunes of the worthy couple, their only son, Shakspeare, the most valuable member of the company, had been down with a wasting fever, and was so ill when they left town that he was unable to be brought with them.

‘Ah!’ Mrs. Jarvis would exclaim, with a sigh, when she counted the takings after each performance, ‘there ain’t no luck about the show without Shakspeare—Shakspeare allus was the draw, father, and we shan’t do no good without him.’

‘Poor chap!’ answered Mr. Jarvis. ‘I’ope as he’s a-goin’ on all right. It don’t seem like the old show without him—do it, mother?’

‘No, it don’t. And what we should ha’ done if we hadn’t ha’ had sich a lodger as Mrs. Smith to leave to look arter him I don’t know! He writes as she’s been like a mother to him, and nussed him till he can almost stand on his ‘ed as easy as ever, and he’s turned his fust caterine wheel last Saturday, and ‘as been better ever since.’

‘He’s a beautiful scholard, ain’t he?’ said Mr. Jarvis, as he took Shakspeare’s letter from his wife, and looked at it reverently.

‘With the eddication he’s got he’ll do something for the dramar some day, as’ll astonish the purfession. Hulloh, there’s the gun again! Why, they’re coming this way!’

As Mr. Jarvis spoke a body of men came running along, peering into the hedges, and looking on every side of them.

The fog was deepening as the darkness came on, and the snow lay thick on road and hedge and tree, so that it was no easy matter to distinguish anything at a distance.

As the men came up with the caravan they stopped, and the leader, an armed warder, addressed Mr. Jarvis.

‘Seen anybody go by here, governor?’

‘What, one of your gents?’ answered Mr. Jarvis. ‘No, that I ain’t. There ain’t ne’er a one passed here.’

The officer hesitated.

‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind letting us look inside,’ he said presently.

‘Look, and welcome, master! answered Mrs. Jarvis. Then, bridling up, she added, ‘A pretty fine thing, indeed! What d’ye think we should want a-harbourin’ conwicks for?’

The officer, without vouchsafing a reply, searched the two living-vans thoroughly, and then, satisfied that his prey was not in them, apologized, and held a council of war among his followers.

If the convict had not passed the caravan he could not be on that road. The man who had informed him he had seen a convict running that way must have been mistaken. The snow was so hard and crisp on the roadway that no footsteps were visible. It would be better to turn back and try in another direction.

The warder and his party returned, and the caravan went jolting on its way.

Hardly had the pursuers disappeared in the mist, when Mrs. Jarvis’s attention was attracted to the baggage-waggon in the rear. The tarpaulin flung over it was moving.

This waggon was unoccupied, the horse following mechanically the vehicles ahead of him.

Mr. Jarvis, attracted by his wife’s exclamation, looked, and he too distinctly saw the tarpaulin move.

He stood still in the roadway till the horse came up to him, and stopped it.

As he did so he distinctly heard a low groan.

‘Now then, governor!’ he exclaimed, ‘whoever you are, come out o’ that.’

No answer, only a groan deeper than before.

The two living-vans had turned a sharp corner of the road by this time, and there was no one in sight.

Mr. Jarvis climbed up on to the waggon and pulled the tarpaulin back.

As he did so he uttered an exclamation of astonishment.

There lay the escaped convict, his face deadly pale, his eyes half shut, and his hands clenched.

Mr. Jarvis shook him.

‘Here, master, this won’t do. Come, you must get out of this. We can’t have no gaol-birds here.’

The man opened his eyes.

‘Oh, sir, for God’s sake help me!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t give me up!—don’t give me up!’

‘I don’t want to give you up; but I can’t harbour ye, ye know—it’s a crime.’

‘Let me lie here, then, till I can walk!’ exclaimed the man. ‘In dodging behind the hedges I slipped and twisted my ankle. I managed to crawl into the waggon and hide among these things, or I should have been caught.’

‘And I’ve been and turned the officers back, and declared as I hadn’t seen ye!’ exclaimed Mr. Jarvis, looking very uncomfortable.

‘Hear me!’ exclaimed the man, raising himself on his arm with difficulty, for the pain from his twisted ankle was excruciating. ‘Hear my story, and then do with me as you will. I’m an escaped convict, but I am innocent of the crime I was condemned for. My time had nearly expired—in a few weeks more I should have been out on a ticket of leave. Unfortunately I incurred the hatred of one of the warders. I refused to help him in a dishonest act. He never forgave me. Twice he found tobacco in my cell. He put it there! For the second offence I lost all my privileges. I was not allowed to write to my wife or to hear from her for nine months, and I lost my chance of a ticket.’

‘Poor devil!’ said Mr. Jarvis.

‘I was maddened with rage. Up in London my wife lay ill, perhaps dying—for her last letter was written in a hand that told its own weakness, though she spoke hopefully. I had counted the days till I should see her again—and now, oh! sir, can you blame me if when I saw at last a chance of escape I seized it? That chance came to-day. I escaped from the guard who were marching us to some outdoor work, and you know the rest. I am here at your mercy; but for God’s sake save me! Think of my poor wife! Think——’

The man spoke no more.

In his excitement he had moved too hastily and hurt the twisted ankle; the anguish was so great that he fainted dead away.

---

‘There, there, my poor fellow!—don’t you fidget. You lie still. We’ll carry you safe to London, or my name is not Lizer Jarvis.’

The speaker was Mrs. Jarvis, and the person addressed was the escaped convict.

Mr. Jarvis had consulted his better half before deciding what to do, and when she had heard the story, the good soul’s motherly heart went out to the poor man, and she determined he should not be given up.

So the baggage-waggon was brought up close to the living-van, and the poor fellow was lifted carefully out and put up snugly in a corner and covered over with a rug, and Mrs. Jarvis, who was clever at sprains and bruises, soon found out what was the matter with his ankle, and bound it up with cold-water bandages.

‘Now, all you’ve got to do is to keep still,’ she said, ‘and lie close, and we’ll get up to our crib in London, and there we can rig you out, and then you must look out for yourself.’

And that night, as the vans went jolting along the road, the convict slept calmly, a free man for the first time for six long years, and he dreamed that his wife was sitting by his side.

When they halted for the night the horses were taken out. The convict awoke with a start.

‘Where am I, Bess?’ he exclaimed.

‘You’re all right,’ answered Mrs. Jarvis cheerily. ‘You stop where you are. Nobody won’t interfere with you.’

‘So his wife’s name’s Bess, is it?’ thought the good lady to herself. ‘It’s a purty name. It’s the name o’ our lodger, Mrs. Smith, as has been so good to Shakspeare. Lor’, how I do long to give that there boy a good motherly hug—bless him!’

Then she walked across to the snug corner where the convict lay.

‘Poor chap!’ she muttered; ‘I hope he’ll find his wife alive., He don’t look a bit like a convict, and I believe as he’s quite as hinnercent as he makes out. If faces goes for anything, I should say he was a born gentleman.’

CHAPTER LIII.
SHAKSPEARE’S NURSE.

In a little back room in a street running off the Lambeth Road, a lad of about sixteen lay on the sofa, wheeled near the window so that he might see out into the street.

By his side, busily plying her needle and thread, sat a young woman whose thin hands and haggard cheeks told their own story of mental torture and bodily suffering.

She was very poor—you could tell that by her well-worn dress and the nature of her occupation. A woman must be poor indeed who sews linen for a livelihood in our great city. She was married, if the wedding-ring on her finger spoke the truth, and she called herself Mrs. Smith. Presently she lifted her face from the work and looked across to the sofa.

‘Well, Shakspeare,’ she said, ‘do you feel wanner now?’

‘Yes, thank you, Mrs. Smith,’ answered the lad; ‘I’m all right now. It makes me warm to see the folks a-movin’ about. Lor, shan’t I be glad when I can go out! Do you think it’ud hurt me if I wropped up?’

‘You mustn’t go out, the doctor says, not when the wind’s in the east.’

‘Ah, I have been bad, ain’t I?—reg’lar bad. Do you know, Mrs. Smith, I believe if you hadn’t nussed me I should o’ been a-turnin’ up my toes to the daisies now. Granny’s a good soul, but she ain’t in the hunt with you at nussin’.

‘Poor old lady,’ said Mrs. Smith, ‘she’s wanted nursing herself; but we’ve got you all right between us, Shakspeare, and when your mother comes back she’ll find her boy nearly himself again.’

‘Poor mother—ain’t she just fond of me!’ exclaimed Master Shakspeare Jarvis, drawing a letter from his pocket. ‘Here’s the last letter as the leadin’ tragedian wrote for her to say as they was on the road home. Why, she might be here any time now, Mrs. Smith. It’s the first tower as they’ve bin without me ever since I can remember, and I hope it’ull be the last.’

‘Never mind,’ said Mrs. Smith, with a smile; ‘you haven’t been idle; there’s the new drama.’

‘Ah!’ exclaimed the lad, his pale face flushing, ‘I think I’ve done it this time. There’s a part for mother as’ull suit her prime, and my part’s tiptop. Shall I give you a scene now?’

‘No, you must not excite yourself.’

‘I know what I shall do,’ answered Master Shakspeare; ‘I shall get mother and father to call a rehearsal here afore we start on the tower, and then you shall see it. I should like you to see it. I’ve called the lady in it Bess, after you.’

Mrs. Smith sighed. It was many a long day since anyone had called her Bess. Young Jarvis had found out that it was her name quite by accident.

Mrs. Smith had come some time since to lodge in this little house in Lambeth. She took the top room and kept it to herself, and the other lodgers, who were as curious as most lodgers are about their neighbours, could find out nothing about her except that she worked for one of the City houses, and was a married woman whose husband was never seen.

But old Mrs. Jarvis, the landlady, finding her a quiet, nice young woman, always ready to sympathise with her rheumatics and other ailments, gradually made a friend and confidant of her, and Bess, when she could spare the time, was invited to come down into the little parlour and listen to her landlady’s trials and tribulations.

Thus it was that she learned the Jarvis’s family history. She learned how Mr. Jarvis, the old lady’s son, had a travelling theatrical show; how he had invested a portion of his savings in house property, partly as a home for his old mother, and partly as a refuge for himself and family when in town, which wasn’t often. By letting off a portion of the house, and leaving the old lady in charge, this arrangement became a profitable one, for the strolling players had ‘a drum’ to come to between their tours where they could live rent free.

Mrs. Smith had lived in the little top room for about six months when the Jarvises came home for a fortnight to reorganize their company and arrange for some novelties; and then Shakspeare, the boy, fell ill—so ill that there was nothing to do but leave him at home with granny.

Granny had her hands full with the lodgers and wanted cosseting herself, so that when Mrs. Smith saw the poor boy, who was like a caged bird, and pined for the roving life, tossing on the bed of sickness, she sat by his side and comforted him, and did little womanly things for him, which helped him to bear his pain more patiently.

At last he grew to look for her, to fret if she did not come and sit by him; he would take his medicine from no one else; and poor-old granny’s stock of patience was soon exhausted by what she called his ‘whims and contrarinesses.’ Then Mrs. Smith would be called in and would act as peacemaker, soothing the irritable boy and the irritated old lady at the same time.

So it came about that at last she was regularly installed as Shakspeare’s nurse, and she would bring her work down into the room where he lay, and sit beside him for hours together. A firm friendship grew up between them. All that was best in the lad’s Bohemian but honest nature blossomed in the sunshine of Bess’s gentle care, and he looked upon her as a sort of angel—an angel who was deserving a much better fate than to be oppressed by some terrible grief, and to have to work for slop-houses in the City for her living.

Shakspeare could write, and was what his mother called a ‘scholard’; and so from time to time, as he grew better, he had written her full, true, and particular accounts of his recovery, and of the lady-lodger’s kindness to him.

Mrs. Jarvis’s heart overflowed with motherly gratitude, for she idolized her boy; but she was not ‘scholard’ enough to let it trickle from her heart down her arm into a pen and or to paper; and so from time to time she got the leading man (who had seen better days, and taught virtue in a national school before he took to delineating villainy on the boards) to write in reply to Shakspeare, and in every letter there was always a mother’s blessing for Mrs. Smith, the kind lodger.

Thus far had events progressed, and thus they stood on the day when this chapter opens, and we see Mrs. Smith at her work, and Shakspeare, who is still weak from his long illness, lying on the sofa.

Mrs. Smith bends over her work and stitches away; and after Shakspeare has read his mother’s letter aloud, and then read it to himself, there is a short silence.

Shakspeare folds the letter and puts it away carefully again.

‘You like reading letters over again and again, don’t you?’ he says presently.

Mrs. Smith starts.

‘Why, what do you mean?’ she says hesitatingly.

‘When I was ill and you thought I was asleep, I often used to see you take letters from your pocket and read them again and again. Were they from your husband, who is abroad?’

The question was put in innocent boyish curiosity, but Mrs. Smith flushed scarlet and turned her head away so that the lad might not notice her confusion.

‘Yes,’ she answered, after a pause; ‘they were from my husband.’

‘When is he coming home?’

‘I—I don’t know. Soon, I hope,’ stammered Mrs. Smith.

‘I hope I shall see him. I’m sure he must be a good fellow, or you wouldn’t kiss his letters like you do.’

Shakspeare Jarvis little knew the tender chord he had touched. Mrs. Smith bent over her work, and the tears trickled down her face. She was thinking of her absent husband. She had visited him from time to time as the regulations allowed, and the meetings had been painful to them both. She had cheered him and bidden him hope. One visiting-day she had been too ill to go, and had written, telling him; the next she had gone—had gone at a time when the expense of her journey had crippled her—and had been told that she could not see him. Her husband had committed some offence against prison regulations, and his punishment was ‘no visitors, no letters.’ Since then she had not heard from him, and now she was getting anxious and nervous again. Every day that passed and she received no news, she grew more and more distressed. She knew his impetuous nature, she had seen how terribly he had been tried by the prison discipline, and she dreaded to think what he might have done in a fit of rage or despair.

She believed him innocent. He had told her all—all that he knew, and she believed him. He was still her noble, handsome George. It was all a vile plot against him; but what could she, a poor, weak, destitute woman, do to prove it?

After her father’s death, thrown entirely upon her own resources, she had determined to live—to live on and toil and struggle, trusting that some day, when the cruel prison-gates rolled back, George might not be alone in the world, but might have at least one faithful, loving heart to look to for support when he began the terrible struggle which would lie before him.

Shakspeare Jarvis noticed the tears as they fell streaming on the work, and he was wise enough to turn and look out of the window and hum a tune, just as if he hadn’t the slightest idea what Mrs. Smith was doing.

He hadn’t looked out of window a minute before he uttered a little cry of surprise and joy.

A cab had drawn up to the door with four heavy boxes on the roof.

‘Oh, Mrs. Smith,’ cried the lad, half beside himself, ‘here they are!’

‘Who?’

‘Why, mother and father. Hullo! they’ve got a gentleman with them. Perhaps he’s the new tragedian. Lor ‘ain’t he popped into the house quick!’

Mrs. Smith rose and folded her work up.

‘I’m going to my own room, Shakspeare dear,’ she said;

‘I’ll come and see your mother presently.’

Bess ran out before Shakspeare could reply. She didn’t want strangers to come in and see her red eyes.

Hardly had she beat a retreat before Mrs. Jarvis, having duly embraced granny below, came panting up the stairs, making them creak and tremble, and, pushing open the door, she had Shakspeare clasped in her motherly arms, squeezing him so vigorously that his ‘God bless you, mother!’ came out in spasmodic jerks, a syllable at a time.

Then there was father to shake hands with, and then Shakspeare, looking up, saw a young man, with a shaved facc and a curious, frightened look on it, standing at the doorway. He had on a long overcoat that Shakspeare knew was his father’s, and when he, with instinctive politeness, took his hat off, Shakspeare’s quick eye noticed that his hair was closely cropped.

Mrs. Jarvis noticed the look.

‘This is a friend of ours, Shakspeare, my boy, that we met on the road. He’s going to lodge with us for a bit.’

‘How do you do, sir?’ said Shakspeare, holding out his hand.

The man took the proffered hand and shook it gently, as if he were ashamed or afraid of it. Shakspeare couldn’t make him out at all.

‘Where’s the guardjen hangel?’ asked Mrs. Jarvis, looking round. ‘I must thank her for all she’s done for the boy.’

‘She’s gone upstairs, mother. She would go.’

‘We’ll have her down,’ cried Mrs. Jarvis, in her quick, impetuous way; but before she could move to call up the stairs, there was a gentle knock at the door.

‘I beg your pardon, I left some of my work, ’said Mrs. Smith. ‘I——

‘GEORGE!’

‘BESS!’

In a moment, with a wild cry of mutual recognition, the strange gentleman and Mrs. Smith were locked in each other’s arms, while the Jarvis family looked on in blank astonishment.

‘Which I’m blest!’ exclaimed Mrs. Jarvis, a little later, when the situation was explained to her, ‘if it don’t beat all the scenes in all the dramers as ever was writ! Well I never!’

CHAPTER LIV.
AT HERITAGE HALL.

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Heritage and Miss Gertie were at breakfast.

The post-bag had just come in, and Ruth and Gertie were sorting the letters.

‘Fourteen for you, Edward dear, this morning,’ said Ruth, with a smile; ‘one for mamma, and four for me.’

Mrs. Heritage opened her letters, which were of no importance, and the master of the establishment—the squire, as he was now called in the neighbourhood—put his by the side of his plate.

It was a peculiarity of his never to open his letters until he was alone in his study. Ruth had once asked him the reason, saying jestingly that she was always so anxious to know what was in hers that she could not wait a minute.

Her husband parried the question, and turned it off with a little joke, and Ruth had at last got accustomed to the habit. It was not his only peculiarity. One—and one which sometimes distressed his wife very much—was a habit of sitting for hours without saying a word, heedless of all that was passing around him, his thoughts far away in some dreamland of his own.

Sometimes, after sitting for a couple of hours in one of these fits of abstraction, he would order his horse to be saddled, and ride away, not returning, perhaps, until night.

He told his wife that these attacks were constitutional, that he had been liable to these fits of depression all his life, and that the only thing which relieved them was long and violent exercise.

At last ‘the squire’s fits’ became proverbial in the neighbourhood, and when the villagers or any of the folks round about met Marston galloping along the lanes at a furious pace, his face pale and determined, and his long hair flying in the wind, they knew what it meant. Old Matthews, the village tailor, and the gossip of the place, declared that the squire always rode as if he was pursued by a demon—and old Matthews was right.

Edward Heritage galloped across the country to escape from a demon who was relentless in pursuit—the demon of the past.

Everything had prospered with him from the day Ruth became his wife. He was respected by his tenantry, well received by his neighbours, and thoroughly happy in his home-life. Ruth had been all that a woman could be to him, and he thanked God every day for the blessing of her love.

But amidst every outward appearance of happiness there was a canker preying upon his heart. Do what he would, the memories of the past would crowd upon him, and bring fears for the future.

The more he became accustomed to the new existence, the greater grew his terror lest any ghost of the old life should wander into the charmed circle.

To all the world he was Squire Heritage; to himself he was Edward Marston. People saw in him a benevolent country gentleman, devoted to his wife and his young ward; he saw in himself an undiscovered forger and thief, a criminal hiding from justice. His loving wife was a woman he had dragged into a shameful alliance, and was one sin the more upon his conscience. His ward was the grand-daughter of an accomplice, a man in whose keeping lay his honour and his life. When at the county sessions he took his seat upon the bench, he trembled lest among the malefactors in the dock there might be some who had know him in the old days.

But there was not much chance of his being recognised. The change of name was a great safeguard, and added to that was the fact that his appearance had changed too. He had aged very rapidly since his marriage. He wore his hair long, and allowed his beard and whiskers to grow freely. These were tinged already with grey, and altogether the change was so complete, not only of surroundings but of appearance, that none but those who had known him intimately and who were searching for him would probably have recognised him.

After breakfast on the morning when we renew our acquaintance with Edward, Ruth, and Gertie, the two ladies went up to old Mrs. Adrian’s room, and left the gentleman alone.

Mrs. Adrian had broken rapidly after her husband’s death, and was now unable to leave her room.

Ruth, like a loving daughter, endeavoured to make her mother feel her loss as little as possible, and always that portion of the morning which her husband spent in his study she and Gertie would pass with the old lady.

They read to her, chatted with her, brought her all the news and all the village gossip they thought she would care to hear, and sometimes, as an extra treat, contradicted her, just to give her an opportunity of exercising her old privilege of scolding them.

When Ruth and Gertie had gone upstairs, the squire picked up his letters and carried them into his study.

He looked at the superscriptions carefully, and tossed some of them aside. They were either circulars or bills, and not of pressing importance. But one envelope he looked at long and anxiously before he opened it.

He knew the handwriting.

It was that of Seth Preene.

Preene was the only one of the gang he had once been connected with who still enjoyed his confidence. Preene was necessary to him, and could be trusted. He paid him liberally for his services. But why should Preene write to him? He had strict orders not to do so unless it was of the first necessity. He received his allowance regularly through Mr. Heritage’s London solicitors, and it was understood that there was to be no direct communication unless something happened which rendered it necessary.

What had happened?

The squire—for so we are bound to call him, as he is Edward Marston no longer—turned the envelope about nervously. He dreaded to open it. Was it possible that at last the blow was about to fall? What he dreaded was the necessity for action. He would do anything rather than that the structure he had raised with so much labour should be pulled about his ears, but he feared the necessity for any active steps arising.

He was tired of crime—he had washed his hands of it for ever; but rather than his sins should come to light and shame fall upon his dear ones, he knew there was no desperate deed he would not commit.

He dreaded to find himself at bay. He hoped that the past was so securely buried that he would need to fling no fresh earth over it, and here was a letter from Seth Preene. What could it be about save the past?

Nerving himself with an effort, he opened the envelope and read the letter at a glance.

It fell from his hands, and he rose from his chair and paced the room.

‘Curse him!’ he muttered. ‘Why couldn’t he stay where he was? Have I not suffered enough already, that this scoundrel must turn up to be the terror of my life?—now, now, when at last I had begun to feel secure.’

He picked up the letter and read it carefully again:

‘Dear Sir,

‘Heckett is back. From what I have discovered he means mischief. I ought to see you at once.’

‘How dared he come back?’ exclaimed the squire angrily. ‘He cannot have found out the trick played upon him. What does Preene mean by “he means mischief”? What has he discovered? Ah! I must see Preene at ones. I wouldn’t have an unknown danger hanging over my head now for worlds. It would kill me.’

The squire sat moodily in his chair and gazed across the broad acres that were his. He would have given them all to be free at this moment from the dread which had once again taken possession of his breast.

‘Poor Ruth!’ he murmured; ‘if she only kuew what a miserable wretch I am! How I play an odious comedy every time I smile! I must see Preene and know the worst.’

He sat down to his desk and commenced a letter, bidding Preene come down; but before it was finished he tore it up and flung it into the fire.

‘Better not,’ he muttered; ‘this place has never been polluted yet by any of the gang except myself. I’ll keep it pure as long as I can.’

Then he wrote a fresh note. It was to the effect that he would be in town at a certain time on the morrow and Preene was to meet him.

He signed it with his old initials, E. M., and, having directed it in a running hand utterly unlike his own, he went out and posted it in the village himself.

He felt inexpressibly mean and guilty and miserable. As he walked home he fell into one of his fits of depression. He anticipated the worst. There was an end to his fool’s paradise at last. On the morrow he would have to be scheming, and might, for all he knew, be drawn into the old vortex again. His only safety from the past might lie in a fresh crime.

Gertie was standing in the garden near the front entrance as he came up the path. She noticed his black look and shrank aside. He went straight through the house and shut himself in his study. He was busy all the morning with some papers which he took from a drawer that he always kept locked.

Ruth saw nothing of him till evening, when they sat down to dinner. Gertie had told her that he had one of his ‘fits’ on him, and Ruth, like a sensible little woman, thought discretion was the better part of valour, and did not go and worry him.

At dinner he scarcely spoke, and Ruth and Gertie had the conversation to themselves. When the servants were out of the room, Ruth, thinking to coax him out of his silence, laughingly offered him a penny for his thoughts, and, when he did not reply, raised her offer to twopence, and put the two coppers in front of him on the table.

He pushed them angrily away, and in doing so his hand caught the wine-glass and dashed the contents all over the table-cloth.

‘Oh, Edward, how careless!’ exclaimed Ruth. ‘Why, what-ever’s put you out?’

‘Nothing!’ he answered snappishly.

‘Nonsense! something has. Come, tell me. Why have secret from me? Was it anything in the letters this morning?’

‘Will you leave me alone?’ exclaimed her husband, clinching his hand, and striking it on the table.

The tears came into Ruth’s eyes.

‘Gertie dear,’ she said, ‘go up and sit with mamma a little, will you?’

Gertie took the hint and went out, her cheeks scarlet and her lip quivering.

‘Edward, what is the matter with you?’ Ruth then said. ‘I never heard you speak like this before! Are you mad?’

‘No, I’m just coming to my senses,’ answered her husband; ringing the bell violently.

The servant entered.

‘Bring me the time-table.’

The servant went into the study and brought the local time-table. The squire ran his finger down it.

‘There’s a train to town at 9.30. Pack my portmanteau at once.’

The servant withdrew, as much astonished at the idea of the master’s abrupt departure as Ruth was.

‘Do you mean to say that you are going to town to-night’, Edward?’ she asked, scarcely believing her ears.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘But you never said a word——’

‘Madam, am I bound to consult you about my move——’

He broke down suddenly. The sight of Ruth’s grave face and the hot tears welling to her eyes was too much for him.

‘Forgive me, my darling,’ he cried, clasping her to his breast and kissing her passionately. ‘Ah, Ruth, Ruth! if you only knew what I have suffered you would forgive me.’

‘Tell me what it is, Edward,’ sobbed Ruth. ‘Let me bear your secret with you.’

‘I cannot,’ he moaned. ‘I am going to town now. When I return all may be well. In the meantime trust in me.’

He kissed her passionately and went out of the room. Half-an-hour later he bade her adieu and drove to the station.

He could not let the night go over. He was in a state of nervous excitement, and felt that he must get away from home at once, and see Preene there and then and know the worst.

That night, for the first time since their marriage, Ruth and her husband were parted. That night, for the first time, she closed her eyes with a heavy heart, and felt that something had come between them.

And up in London the squire sat with Seth Preene and heard his story, and then he knew that his dream was at an end; that he must wander back into the old path of shame once more, and plot and plan again, putting his conscience behind him if he would not let his enemy triumph over him and drag him and her who bore his name to ruin and disgrace.

CHAPTER LV.
THE ARREST.

It was late that afternoon, and the shades of evening were falling rapidly on the little street, but the happy little party seated round the hospitable board in the front parlour seemed little inclined to break up.

Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis were honest-hearted genuine English folks, with hearts as big as their appetites, and they were as pleased to think they had reunited the convict and his wife as they would have been had royalty patronized their show at some country town.

Besides, steeped as they were in the morality of the British peripatetic drama, it seemed to them that things were only in their right course. In the drama all escaped convicts are innocent, and in the drama it is always the duty of the ‘first old woman’ to help the convict to find his sweetheart. And when that sweetheart turned out to be the kind lodger to whom her Shakspeare owed his life, no wonder Mrs. Jarvis declared that Providence had arranged it all with a keen eye to a ‘situation’ and the triumph of persecuted virtue.

Up in her own room Bess had cried and sobbed upon George’s shoulder for a good hour, and then, when all the tears were shed, and the sacred joy of that strange meeting had been duly respected, Mrs. Jarvis came upstairs and insisted that they should come down and have dinner with them. It was a grand dinner indeed. Granny was sent out with a plentiful supply of coin, and returned from the cookshop with a famous dish of hot boiled beef and carrots and at least a dozen slices of ‘spotted dog,’ which were popped into the oven to keep hot while the beef and carrots were being disposed of.

George and Bess had little heart to eat, for to this joy of their sudden meeting was added the bitter knowledge of the circumstances which led to it.

George had told Bess all; how, maddened by his unjust treatment, fearing that she might be ill, perhaps dying, he had determined to make a desperate effort to escape, and how when the opportunity presented itself he had seized it.

Directly the first flush of joy was over Bess grew nervous. Every sound terrified her. She dreaded lest the police might suddenly appear upon the scene. It seemed so cruel that, now they were united after these long years of absence, George should still be a hunted felon, with a price upon his head.

The old showman and his good wife saw how matters lay, and did their best to cheer them. Shakspeare and granny were not in the secret of the circumstances under which George had been found, and they could not understand the nervous little jumps which Bess kept giving when there was a knock next door, or the sound of a cab stopping in the street. George concealed his feelings better than his wife, but he, too, was nervous. They had left the vans and the horses a little way out, in charge of the men, who were to move slowly across country with them to the starting-point for the next tour, and George, though well disguised in a slouch hat and Mr. Jarvis’s long coat, was in an agony of fear as they came by a suburban line of railway to a point where they could take a cab to the door. He felt sure that a description of him had been telegraphed to all the stations, and that there would be plenty of people on the look-out to earn the reward which had doubtless been offered.

He would have been still more nervous had he known that for days a stout gentleman had been hanging about the street looking up at this very house—a stout gentleman, who had recognised Mrs. Smith’s face, and who had also read in the papers an account of a convict’s escape, and had ascertained that this runaway convict was his old lodger, Mr. George Smith.

Mr. Jabez Duck, applying himself diligently to his new business of private inquiry agent, had progressed rapidly in his employer’s favour, and found himself soon very fairly off, with a good salary, liberal journey ‘exes,’ and a house full of lodgers at home, who more than paid his rent. He and Susan occasionally had a little flare up, but as a rule they jogged along very comfortably.

It was in the course of his professional perusal of ‘Lost, Stolen, or Strayed,’ the agony column and the mysterious crime department of the daily press, that Jabez lighted upon the intelligence that his old lodger, George Smith, had escaped and eluded his pursuers.

Jabez had previously by accident recognised Mrs. Smith, as she stood looking out of the window of Shakspeare Jarvis’s room one day, and Jabez said to himself that if George Smith got to London undiscovered he would make his way to where his wife was.

When the days went on and the escaped convict was not heard of, Jabez felt sure that he had got safely through the country and was coming townward. Here was a chance for him to distinguish himself in his business and get his name in all the papers. He might beat the professional detectives at their own game, and show how much cleverer he was than the Scotland Yard folks.

Day after day he watched the little house in Lambeth, and made inquiries round about in a quiet and innocent manner as to whether any one had arrived. He got acquainted with one of the lodgers in the house, and went through the whole programme of manouvres which enables the private inquiry agent to know our business, if he wants to, better than we know it ourselves.

If I am curious about Mr. Jones in the next street, or Mr. Stubbs opposite, and want to know all about him, I have but to get a subscriber to one of the trade protection societies to ‘put an inquiry through’ for me. The process is simple. The inquirer fills up a printed form with the name and address of the person he is curious about, and the nature of information required, and hands it in at the office. In three or four days he gets a reply. One of these replies lies before the writer. It is a gem. ‘No. 316. The person inquired about has lived at his present address two years. Was formerly a publican, but became bankrupt in 1874. Since then has married a second wife, who is said to have money. Attends race meetings, and is addicted to drink. Has been summoned twice for assaulting his present wife. Tradespeople in neighbourhood have difficulty in getting their accounts settled. Has a brother undergoing penal servitude. Further information if required.’

It isn’t pleasant to think that, without our knowledge, we ourselves, gentle reader, may be inquired about half a dozen times a year by these agent gentlemen, and that whatever scandal they may pick up of a tradesmen we have ceased to deal with, or a discharged servant, is duly entered against us to our detriment, without the possibility of our refuting the libellous statement, of which we are in sublime ignorance.

Mr. Jabez gathered his information from the usual sources, but his legal training had taught him always to verify hearsay evidence, and he generally got pretty near the mark. In the present instance he ascertained that Mrs. Smith was still a grass widow, and that no husband had appeared upon the scene.

He was almost giving the ease up as a bad job, when, walking through the street on other business, he looked up at a passing four-wheeler, and just caught sight of a face which caused him to stand still and utter an exclamation of surprise.

It was the face of George Smith, the escaped convict.

In an instant Jabez guessed whither his prey was bound, and he did not take the trouble to follow him. He walked quietly back to his office, settled the business he had in hand, and then went to a detective with whom he occasionally worked, and concocted the plan for George’s arrest.

Jabez told the officer a romantic story, all intended for publication in the daily papers by-and-by, of how he had gone to work to discover the whereabouts of the runaway convict, and then arranged that the detective was to arrest George and take him off, and charge him with being a convict at large, while he telegraphed to the prison authorities, and he and Jabez were to share the reward offered for the capture, Jabez in addition getting the fame for his sagacity and ingenuity. The affair would be well reported, and would give Mr. Duck what he was pleased to call a rare ‘leg up’ in his profession. Who could say but that the authorities might not employ him by-and-by? He would start on his own account on the strength of the advertisement, and be sure of the private patronage of missing-friend and disappeared-daughter hunters.

So it was all arranged, and that afternoon, as the shadows fell and the inmates of the little parlour were sitting round the fire, Detective Johnson, with two men in uniform, came down the street, and reconnoitered the house from the opposite side of the way.

There was only one thing Jabez had forgotten, and that was to give his friend a description of the man.

Johnson remembered it afterwards, and would have gone back and asked whether he was young or old, and what he was like, but there was no time, as the bird might fly when the darkness came on.

Now it happened that at that very moment Shakspeare was flattening his face against the window-pane, and peering down into the street. His quick eyes caught those of the detective fixed upon the house.

‘Hulloh, father!’ cried Shakspeare; ‘look here! Isn’t that the ‘tec that we see so often at the races?’

At the word ‘tec,’ George’s face went deadly pale, and he sprang from his seat.

Old Jarvis looked out, and he took the situation in in a moment.

‘By Jove, yes! He’s watching the house; and there’s two peelers at the corner.’

Bess, with a wild cry, flung her arms around George’s neck.

Old Jarvis hesitated a moment. Then he turned to George.

‘Quick, quick!—this way!’ he said. ‘I may save you yet!’ Hardly knowing what he did, George followed the old showman from the room, and ran upstairs with him.

Bess staggered after him as far as the door, and then fell fainting into the arms of Mrs. Jarvis.

At that moment a loud knock.

‘Let’em knock,’ shouted Jarvis down the stairs. ‘Don’t open till I tell you.’

The knocking continued. There was a sound of hurried movements in the room above, and Mrs. Jarvis wondered what her husband was doing.

Presently there was a noise of some one going rapidly upstairs, and in a minute or two all was still.

The knocking grew louder and louder, and a curious crowd, attracted by the noise, gathered outside. The policemen had been sent round to the back to watch the garden, lest the bird should attempt to fly that way.

Mrs. Jarvis ran half-way up the stairs.

‘What am I to do!’ she cried. ‘They’ll burst the door in directly, and there’s a crowd half across the street.’

‘Open!’ answered a smothered voice that she could hardly recognise.

Mrs. Jarvis stepped to the door, and opened it.

‘Hoity-toity!’ she exclaimed, putting her arms akimbo; ‘what’s all this noise about? Are you the Taxes, or the Gas, or the Water?’

‘All right, mum,’ said the detective, coming in and shutting the door after him; ‘you’re fly, I see. We want the man who’s here—an escaped convict. Here’s my authority to search the house.’

Mrs. Jarvis looked at the detective’s card, her buxom form effectually blocking up the staircase.

‘Conwick!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why, lawks a mussy, man, whatever should we do with a conwick here?’

‘I don’t want to do anything unpleasant, my good woman,’ answered the detective; ‘so perhaps you’ll stand aside and let me search the house.’

‘Search away, and welcome!’ replied Mrs. Jarvis, moving aside; ‘and if you finds a conwick, let’s have a look at him. I never see one afore.’

The detective went up the stairs two at a time, and commenced to search. A policeman stood at the front door to see no one passed out.

The detective was not very long before he found what he was in search of. He went straight to the top room, which he had ascertained was occupied by the convict’s wife.

He entered cautiously, and looked about him. It was empty.

But he was not content with a superficial glance.

He peered into every corner, and then, stooping down, looked under the bed.

‘I guessed as much,’ he muttered. Then, drawing a revolver from his pocket, he exclaimed, in a loud voice:

‘Now, then, out you come, or I shall shoot.’

Slowly a man crept out, trembling and holding his face aside. He was wrapped in a long coat, buttoned to the chin.

The detective, still holding the revolver in one hand, walked up to him and looked him full in the face.

‘George Heritage,’ he said, ‘I arrest you as an escaped convict.’

‘I am not George Heritage,’ said the man in a low voice.

‘You’re not George Heritage, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll take you on spec. If you’re not the man, What did you hide under that bed for, and what are you doing in Mrs. Smith’s room, eh?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered the man huskily.

‘Ah, but I do,’ exclaimed the detective, suddenly seizing the trembling wretch. ‘Come, let’s slip the bracelets on’ In the struggle, the long coat was torn aside. ‘Ah, you’re not the man, aren’t you? That’s good! I thought I should bowl you out.’

There could be no doubt that this was the right man. Underneath the long coat he wore the prison garb of the convict.

He went quietly enough then. The police kept the door while he was put into a cab, and then they jumped in too, and off went the party to the police station.

The scene in the little parlour was heartrending.

Bess lay in a dead faint on the sofa, Mrs. Jarvis slapping her hands and bathing her face to bring her to, and Shakspeare, white as death, crying in a corner.

Presently there was the sound of footsteps creeping cautiously down the stairs, and the next minute a man, his face ashy white, stole into the room. Bess opened her eyes and gave a loud hysterical cry.

The next moment her head was on the man’s breast, and her lips were moving in thankfulness to heaven.

It was George.

The good showman had dressed himself in the convict’s clothes, which they had brought with them in the box, and the detective, who knew nothing except that he was an escaped convict, and had no knowledge of his age or appearance, had been caught in the trap.

George had climbed through the trap-door that led to the roof, and lain concealed till the officers had gone.

‘We mustn’t stay here a minute,’ he cried, when Bess had recovered. ‘The trick will be found out directly he gets to the station, and they’ll be back here directly. I must go.’

‘Not alone, George,’ cried Bess; ‘not alone. Let us be together while we can. Oh, George, away from you now I should die. Let me share your danger! Let me come with you!’

It was in vain that George pleaded.

Bess would not hear of it. She would wander forth with him. She should know his fate then. The uncertainty would kill her.

In a few minutes, well wrapped up with scarves and shawls, which the good-hearted Mrs. Jarvis insisted upon their taking, and with five sovereigns which she thrust into Bess’s hand as they were going, the convict and his wife stole cautiously out of the house, and harried away, intending to make for the outskirts, and trust to Providence for some means of leaving the country undetected.

Bess wore a deep veil, and George, at Mrs. Jarvis’s suggestion, bought a pair of eye-protectors, and wore his scarf over his mouth, as though he had a bad cold. Thus disguised, and dressed in the loose, ill-fitting suit Mr. Jarvis had lent him in the morning, there was every possible chance of their eluding pursuit with ordinary caution.

Shakspeare came up to the door as they were leaving, and put his arm round Bess’s neck and kissed her, and bade her goodbye.

He knew her story now, and why she cried over those letters.

‘I wish I was as sure o’ heaven as I am o’ that young fellow’s hinnocence,’ exclaimed Mrs. Jarvis, as she tried to soothe Shakspeare, who was quite upset by his nurse’s tragic departure.

‘Innocent!’ exclaimed Shakspeare. ‘Do you think she’d love him if he wasn’t? Ah, if I was only strong again, and a bit older, I’d soon prove it.’

‘Don’t you fret, my boy,’ answered Mrs. Jarvis. ‘It’ll all come right yet, like it does in the dramas. You mark my words. Wirtue’s always triumphant in the last act, and I shouldn’t be at all surprised if that act ain’t the next in this here drama o’ “The Conwick’s Wife,” though what’ll happen to your poor father as is playing the low-comedy business in it just now, Goodness only knows!’

CHAPTER LVI.
A RESCUE.

Twelve o’clock has chimed from Big Ben, and Hyde Park is deserted.

It is a cold winter night, and the snow lies upon London’s open spaces.

It has been freezing hard all day, but the ice on the Serpentine is not thick enough to bear the great army of skaters yet, and so there are no loiterers along the bank.

Here and there, eluding as best they can the bull’s-eye of the policeman who saunters along on his round, lie the miserable homeless wretches who creep into the London parks and stretch their weary limbs out for a while upon the seats.

On one of these seats sit, or rather crouch, a man and a woman.

The man is speaking.

‘Bess, my darling, leave me,’ he says. ‘Leave me. I can shift for myself. Go back to the Jarvises—they will give you shelter, and I will contrive to let you know from time to time where I am.’

‘No, George dear,’ answers the woman, ‘I will not leave you. Come what may, I will stay with you. I could not rest, knowing that at any moment you might be discovered and taken back again to that dreadful place. Something tells me to hope—to hope that our troubles may yet pass away, and we may find peace at last.’

‘In the grave—nowhere else,’ answers the man sorrowfully. ‘I am branded. I am something to be hunted like a beast. Every man’s hand is against me. I am an escaped convict.’

‘Hush, hush!’ whispers the woman. ‘Do not speak so loud; some one may hear you.’

‘Where are we to sleep to-night says the man presently. ‘You can’t wander about again such a bitter night as this.’

The woman does not answer. She is wondering what they are to do. They are not starving, these people, and they are warmly wrapped up; nor are they penniless, for Mrs. Jarvis had not only slipped some money into Bess’s hand, but told her to come for more if they wanted it.

They could afford to pay for a lodging; but where are they to go? Everywhere the man is terrified lest questions should be asked, lest he should be recognised. The news of his escape is far and wide, his description is advertised in the papers; for days they have been wandering about, Bess going into the shops and buying the food, and at night they have been sleeping in out-of-the-way parts of London, entering late at night into the lodging-houses, and George keeping his face tied up as though he had a bad cold.

They have adopted every means in their power to elude discovery; but George is nervous, and Bess shares his fears. Last night when they applied for a room at a little inn up by Hammersmith, the landlady stared at George and hesitated, and all night long they lay awake, fearing they heard the steps of the police on the stairs. To-night they dread to apply anywhere. So long as they can wander about in the parks and quiet places they feel safe. It is when night comes, and they must go between four walls, that the great terror comes.

Thus it is that they are lingering on to-night in the park. George suggests presently that they shall move on a little, for a thick mist is falling.

Just as they are rising to go they hear voices down by the water, the voices of men quarrelling, and something impels them to stay where they are and listen.

They are quite alone in this part of the park; the night is too bitter for any to linger in such a spot. The mist has grown thicker and thicker, and they can see no forms, they can only hear the two voices in angry dispute.

Presently there is a loud oath, then a crash, as of yielding ice, a splash and a cry, and then the sound of footsteps hurrying away through the fog.

Bess clutches her husband’s arm and listens.

‘Help! help!’

It is a faint cry from the water’s edge, and the thick mist half drowns it.

Forgetting his position, forgetting all save that perhaps a fellow-creature is in deadly peril, George Heritage runs in the direction of the sound. Bess follows him.

He can hear a voice, and he can see two dark arms waving through the mist.

‘Where are you?’ he shouts.

‘Here! here! Help, for God’s sake, help!’ shouts the man in the water. ‘I cannot hold out! I’m going!—the water’s a-dragging of me down! Help! help!’

Quick as thought, Bess tears her shawl off, and gives it to her husband.

‘God have mercy on me!’ cries the man, struggling fiercely to raise himself above the crackling, treacherous ice. ‘Lord forgive me!’

At that moment George, clutching his wife’s hand firmly to support himself, throws the shawl across the thinly frozen water. With a wild despairing cry the man flings out his hand and clutches it. A moment more and he is dragged ashore.

He is faint with exertion, and gasping, and he can scarcely stand.

‘Give me some brandy, quick!’ he murmurs. ‘The damned villain’s nearly put my light out—curse him!’

‘Hush!’ cries George. ‘Thank God for your safety.’

Bess, trembling in every limb with terror, has been feeling in her pockct. Dreading lest George should fall ill, she had, like the loving, thoughtful little woman she always was, put a small bottle in her pocket, and had it filled in the morning.

The half-drowned man seizes it, and gulps the contents down. Then he turns to his preserver and peers into his face. Directly he can discern his features he starts back. His teeth are still chattering with the shock of the immersion, as he gasps out, ‘George Heritage!’

George starts back in terror, and Bess almost falls. Who is this man they have saved from death to cry their secret aloud like this?

‘Nay, don’t be afeard,’ growls the man. ‘You’ve saved my life, and you’ve done the best night’s work you ever done in your lives. Let’s get out of this place, and I’ll tell you something as’ll make you thank God all your days for what you’ve done.’ Hardly knowing what they do, so dazed are they by the rapid progress of events, George and Bess follow the strange man. He is wet to his waist, and his saturated clothes are frozen on him, but he doesn’t seem to care about it. His mind is busy with some thought that makes his burly frame heave with passion, and his fierce face hideous with rage.

‘By G—d, if he only knew!’ he cries.

At the park gates he gets into a cab, and bids his preservers follow him. He tells them enough to assure them he means them no harm.

In a quarter of an hour George and Bess are safely sheltered in a house in Lisson Grove, and the man they have rescued sits with them by a roaring fire, and tells them a story which makes Bess’s pale cheeks crimson with excitement and her eyes bright with joy, and which makes George raise his eyes to heaven in thankfulness, and cry:

‘At last. Thank God!—thank God!’

The man they have rescued is Josh Heckett, and the man whose retreating footsteps they had heard in the mist, and who in a fit of furious rage had hurled the old man on to the treacherous ice, was Edward Marston.

---

The next morning there was a council of war. George confided his story fully to Heckett, for he had learnt enough to know that Heckett cherished a scheme of deadly revenge, and that George was to be the chief instrument in it.

Heckett had only one idea now—to hunt down Marston. He was relentless in his hate, and he had found an instrument ready to his hand.

Heedless of his own safety, and the use that might be made of the knowledge, he told George all, How the burglary had been planned; how it was George had been suspected; how the cheques had been forged by Smith and Co.; and how the evidence had been built up in order to secure the conviction of an innocent man.

George was for dragging him away there and then to tell his story; but Heckett soon showed him what folly that would be. He himself dare not appear. He could not face the police, he said, for reasons; and, besides, to exculpate George he would have to accuse himself.

‘You bide a bit, governor, and you’ll see it’ll all come right; but it’s Marston as must do you justice, not me.’

‘Where is he?’ asked George.

‘I don’t know,’ answered Heckett. ‘I saw him last night for the first time for five years. I sent word to a man named Preene as I must see him, and Preene found him and sent him to me. I made the appointment in the park late, for I didn’t want to be seen by too many people, for I didn’t know what cursed game he might be up to. Then we had a row, and he tried to murder me, the blackguard!’

‘It might have been an accident,’ suggested George.

‘No, it was my life against his, and he knew it. I knew too much, and he feared as I should peach, and so he thought to settle me that way. You saved me, and it’s the rummest thing as ever was. One ‘ud think it was to be.’

At last George yielded to Heckett’s solicitation to let him go his own way to work. So far he was already benefited by the acquaintance. The house was Heckett’s. For reasons of his own he kept it to himself entirely, and there George and Bess could remain for a while safe from pursuit.

Safe until Heckett’s great scheme of vengeance was ripe, and then the old man swore to George he should stand boldly before the world and unmask the author of all his misery and sufferings.

CHAPTER LVII.
SQUIRE HERITAGE HAS A BAD ATTACK.

On the morning after the attempted murder and the rescue of Josh Heckett in Hyde Park, Mrs. Heritage rose early and came downstairs.

She had not slept all night, and she was thoroughly miserable. Her husband had been up in town several days, and she had never had a line from him.

She invented a story to tell her mother and Gertie when they asked where the squire was; but she was terribly distressed by his extraordinary conduct, and his cruelty in leaving her without any news of him.

She was terrified lest there was something in the old life which he had kept from her and which was now troubling him. A thousand nameless fears floated across her brain and caused her the most terrible mental torture.

She remembered his wild youth, their long separation, and the tales that she had heard from time to time. But their married life hitherto had given the lie to calumny. He had been a tender and devoted husband, and there had been nothing to show that he had anything to trouble him, save those occasional fits of depression which he assured her were constitutional.

Suddenly all had changed. He had broken out fiercely, spoken cruelly to her, and gone away without giving her the slightest clue to his whereabouts.

What could it mean?

This morning she went into the breakfast-room to feed her birds—to do anything to divert her mind from painful thoughts—and there she found her husband.

He must have come back by the first train and entered the house directly the servants were up, for she had heard no bell ring.

When she entered the room he was sitting by the fire, his head bent down and his hands clasped.

He raised his head at the sound of her approach, and she started back and gave a little cry of terror.

His face was ashy white, his eyes were bloodshot, and a strange hunted look in them that she had never seen before.

‘Edward!’ she cried, running to him and falling on her knees beside him—‘Edward, you are ill!’

He raised her gently.

‘No, Ruth,’ he said, ‘it’s nothing. Don’t make a fuss, there’s a good girl. Give me the brandy out of the cellaret.’

Ruth took her keys from the little basket she carried, and gave him the brandy.

He half filled a glass and swallowed it at a draught.

‘I’m better now,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask me any questions, there’s a good girl. I’m going to bed for an hour or two. I shall be all right directly.’

He seemed to avoid her gaze. He wanted to get away from her, and, with a woman’s quick instinct, she saw it. She let him go, and then she fell on her knees, and, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she sobbed out a prayer to God to watch over and protect her husband, and to let no black shadows come to mar their lives—lives that had been so happy until now.

The squire came down to luncheon, but he was still white and restless. He answered Gertie and his wife haphazard, and evidently did not know what he said.

That afternoon, for the first time in their married life, Ruth saw her husband drunk. He had stupified himself with brandy, and had fallen into a drunken sleep.

She had gone to him in his study to ask him a question, and there she found him dozing fitfully, with the empty bottle by his side.

He heard her footsteps, but did not recognize her. Without opening his eyes, he addressed her as though she was some one else.

He cursed her and called her horrible names. Then suddenly he leapt up, his bloodshot eyes starting from his head, and struggled with an imaginary foe.

‘It’s your own fault, curse you!’ he cried. ‘Drown, like the dog that you are!’ Then he fell back heavily into his chair, and Ruth, alarmed, rushed out and called for help.

He was in a fit.

The doctor came, and was astonished. ‘The brain is affected,’ he said. ‘Some terrible shock has unnerved him. He must be kept quite quiet and watched.’

That night Ruth sat and watched by the bedside of a delirious husband.

And in his delirium the horrible secrets of his life were told. Secrets so horrible, things so vile and unholy, that the woman who bore his name raised her despairing eyes to heaven, and cried to God passionately to close the madman’s self-condemning lips.

---

It was a fortnight before the squire came round again, and then he was the wreck of his former self.

Weak and ill, he would wander about in the air for an hour or two a day, leaning on his wife’s arm, and uttering never a sound.

Ruth, too, had changed. Her beautiful face was deeply lined, and her eyes were sunken. ‘She’s fretting about the master,’ said the servants. They did not know that she was crushing down in her heart the ghastly secret that chance had revealed to her.

Under that awful knowledge, slowly but surely her heart was breaking. And yet knowing all—having heard every awful word that had fallen from this man in his delirium—she loved him still, loved him as fondly as ever, and would have laid down her life to save him from one moment’s pain.

Slowly the squire mended. He grew less feeble, and could get about alone again. He seemed like a man recovering from a terrible dream. But the doctors were very careful with him. They had heard a good deal that he had said, and put it down to some terrible story in a book or a newspaper having made a great impression on him when he was in a low, nervous state. So he was forbidden on any account to see a paper yet and none were brought into the house. He was glad of the prohibition. Had he seen a newspaper, the first thing he would have done would have been to search for a paragraph among the old ones in which there was something about the dead body of an old man being found in the Serpentine.

CHAPTER LVIII.
DR. OLIVER BIRNIE’S NEW PATIENT.

Dr. Oliver Birnie’s consulting-room was generally pretty full in the morning, and always with paying patients. He had long since passed the ‘super’ stage of the profession. Lest any intelligent reader should be unacquainted with this phase of medical practice, let me explain that it is the custom when young doctors are anxious to work up a reputation for being fashionable for them to engage a few supers—that is, to give advice gratis to a few selected persons, on condition that they come once or twice a week and help to make a crowd in the waiting-room.

A doctor’s house, like a theatre, must be crowded if the proprietor would have a success. An empty waiting-room is like an empty pit; it dispirits the clientèle. Let a patient have to wait a couple of hours, and he considers the doctor a great man; let him find himself alone, and be shown in directly, and he imagines that the medical man can’t be clever or he would be busier.

Dr. Birnie was at home for consultation till twelve, and his rooms were generally crowded with genuine patients. They were, naturally, well-dressed, well-to-do people, for his fee was high. One morning, as the ladies and gentlemen at Dr. Birnie’s sat glaring at each other amid the funereal silence which generally reigns in a doctor’s waiting-room, the door opened, and a rough, hulking old man was shown in by the solemn attendant. He was about six feet, and broad in proportion, his hair and beard were grizzled, and his face was bronzed with exposure. He wasn’t a nice-looking old gentleman at all, and his get-up did not improve his appearance. He wore a thick pilot jacket, which was anything but a fit, and round his throat was twisted a dirty white comforter. He took off his hat as he entered the room, and sidled awkwardly to a chair, sitting on the extreme edge, and eyeing the company nervously. At first the ladies and gentlemen wondered what such a huge, powerful fellow could possibly want with a doctor. They imagined he must be a navvy, or something of the sort, and they felt it was like his impudence to come and sit down in their presence. But presently the great frame was racked, the fierce face became crimson, and the silence of the waiting-room was broken by the violent coughing of the new-comer.

That a man with a cough like that should need medical advice the ladies and gentlemen understood, but their astonishment was great when the door opened and the solemn attendant beckoned to this ‘navigator’ to come out.

The idea of the doctor taking such a person out of his turn!

It was strange, certainly, but Dr. Birnie had done it, and when the rough-looking fellow was shown into his consulting-room, he held out his hand, and exclaimed, quite familiarly, ‘Well, Josh, wherever have you turned up from?’

Then Mr. Josh Heckett told Dr. Birnie a long story, beginning in England, then going to Australia, and coming back to England again, and the said story ended on the banks of the Serpentine.

‘Good gracious me!’ said the doctor. ‘And you mean to say that Marston deliberately tried to murder you?’

‘I do by———!’ exclaimed Heckett, bringing his fist down on the table till the surgical instruments danced again; ‘and he’s done it, except as it’s a slow death ‘stid of a quick un. I ain’t been the same man, guv’nor, since that there night. It’s the wettin’ and the cold as done it. This ‘ere corf don’t give me no rest night nor day.’

Dr. Birnie put something to the old man’s chest and listened, then he put his ear to his back and made him draw his breath, and then the doctor’s face assumed a grave, profound look.

‘Hem!’ he said; ‘that’s bad. You ought to have come to me before. How long have you had this cough?’

‘Soon arter the duckin’ it come on, and it’s got wus and wus. I bought no end o’ lozengers and things off the barrers, as they sez cures a corf in no time; but they didn’t do me a bit o’ good. So I thought as I’d find you out and see if you could set me right. I ain’t bothered you for a good many years now.’

‘Well, Josh, I’ll see what I can do for you, but you must be careful. You’d better keep indoors as much as you can, and I’ll give you a prescription.’

The doctor wrote something on a piece of paper, and handed it to Josh.

‘You’ll get that made up at any chemist’s,’ he said. ‘Let me see you again in a week.’

Josh took his prescription and thanked the doctor; but before he went he told him a portion of another little story, and, carried away by his excitement, he even went so far as to let the doctor into the details of a little scheme of vengeance which he was brewing against a man whom the doctor in days gone by had once known exceedingly well.

The doctor was so interested in the story that he let Josh talk on for ever so long, utterly oblivions of the ladies and gentlemen drumming their heels in the waiting-room.

And when Josh was gone he didn’t send for a fresh patient at once, but sat for a few minutes buried in thought.

‘I wonder what to do for the best,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘I suspect Gurth would like to be in at the death, and it’s all up with Edward Marston. He need fear nothing in that quarter now. Yes, I think Gurth had better come.’

That morning, when all the patients were disposed of, Dr. Birnie started out on his round of visits.

But the first thing he did was to send a telegraphic message to America:

‘From Birnie, London, to Egerton, ———— Hotel, New York.—Come back. The game is yours. M. is trapped.’

---

Josh Heckett’s cough grew worse and worse. Bess and George were still with him, and very grateful they were for the means of avoiding pursuit. George never ventured out now, but Bess, thickly veiled, did all the marketing for the little household. She was a capital nurse too, and Josh, in his rough, uncouth way, was grateful. He had never known all his life what kindness was. Gertie he had looked upon as bound to do what he wanted, because he fed and kept her, and Gertie was only a child. But with Bess it was different. She and her husband had not only saved his life, they were going to be his chosen instruments in a deep-laid scheme of vengeance.

He had found out now the whole vile plot against him, and as he sat at home and coughed, he brooded over his wrongs. He had found out that he had been frightened out of the country by a ruse, and that Marston and Preene were at the bottom of it. Every time he coughed, every time he swayed to and fro, the great gorged veins on his head standing out in ridges with the violence of the paroxysms, he cursed Marston. He believed that he had caught his death that night in the cold waters of the Serpentine, and he grew almost to thirst for his destroyer’s blood.

If he had met Edward Marston face to face now he would have sprung upon him and throttled him where he stood. But the temptation did not come, and he sat and brooded over his wrongs, and matured the deep-laid scheme which was to put his enemy under his feet.

He rubbed his hands when he thought of the scene. He chuckled and laughed to himself as he pictured the hour of his triumph.

And day by day the cough grew worse and worse, and his brawny limbs lost more and more of their strength. Long sleepless nights and days of unrest were telling on him, and at times he would lean back in the easy-chair, which Bess had wheeled to the fire for him, close his eyes, and wonder what sort of a world it was men like himself went to when they died.

Bess and George knew only a portion of their protector’s secret. They knew that he, like themselves, had been foully wronged by Marston. George lost sight of everything in his desire to wipe the awful stain from his name, and to clear himself before the world. And Josh Heckett promised him if he would only be patient he should wring a confession of his innocence from the real culprit himself.

It was necessary for them to act with caution, for George’s recapture would have ruined all. Heckett would not risk all by striking till the blow was sure, and he had not the information he wanted yet, though some of his old associates were at work for him.

Birnie had promised to assist him in something that he particularly wanted to know, and one day the doctor’s carriage drove up to the door, and the doctor came in and told Josh two things—one he was glad to hear, and one he would not have heard for untold gold.

From the first piece of information he learnt that Marston was in his clutches now. The doctor had traced him to his den; the doctor had found out that he had inherited, through his wife, the Heritage estates, and that he had taken the name with the money.

But the doctor also told Heckett that his cough was worse, and that he must take every care of himself, for the symptoms were serious, and a fresh cold on this one would end in consumption.

And the doctor spoke only half the truth.

The wetting and exposure to cold that eventful night in Hyde Park had done their work, and a fatal disease had already seized the stalwart burglar in its grip.

The symptoms of galloping consumption had shown themselves to the experienced eye of Dr. Birnie.

CHAPTER LIX.
A VISITOR FOR RUTH.

On one of the first days of spring Gertie Heckett stood at the lodge-gates, looking along the road as though she expected some one.

Ruth had driven her husband out in the pony-carriage for the first time since his illness. Until to-day he had not gone beyond the park-gates.

While Gertie was looking for the carriage, a young woman, deeply veiled, came by, and, seeing Gertie, stopped.

‘Is Mrs. Heritage at home, do you know, miss?’ said the woman, in a nice soft voice that took Gertie’s fancy directly.

‘No, she’s not,’ answered Gertie. ‘Do you want to see her?’

‘Yes. I’ve come from London on purpose.’

Gertie thought at first it must be some one in distress who had been recommended to come to them, for the young woman, though neat, didn’t look very well off, so she asked if she could do anything for her.

‘Yes, miss, you ean; you can do me a great favour. I want to see Mrs. Heritage on most important business—important to her and to her husband. If you will let me go into the house and wait till she comes, I shall be glad.’

‘Will you step into the lodge?’ said Gertie, pointing to the open door.

The woman shrank back with a little start.

‘No, thank you,’ she said hesitatingly. ‘I’d—I’d rather not.’

Gertie thought it very funny that this strange woman should object to go into the lodge, and she was just going to ask her why she objected, when a loud bark was heard, and Lion came trotting along in front of the pony-carriage.

The squire sat by his wife’s side; but few who had known him in the old time would have recognized him now. He had aged terribly. His face was deeply lined, and his hair had gone almost white during his illness. His head was bent forward and his eyes were half closed as the chaise drove up to the lodge-gate. At the sound of Gertie’s voice he looked up, and saw the young woman talking to her.

In an instant the listless look upon his face vanished, his lips trembled, his face flushed angrily, and his dull eyes flashed.

‘Who’s this?’ he exclaimed angrily.

‘Some one who wishes to see Mrs. Heritage, ’answered Gertie, surprised at the squire’s manner.

‘Mrs. Heritage can’t see her, then,’ said the squire, taking the reins from Ruth and whipping the pony into a gallop.

Gertie stared after the carriage in astonishment, as it was whirled up to the house-door; but the young woman never moved.

‘I’m afraid the gentleman’s offended with you for talking to me,’ she said. ‘Will you kindly give this to Mrs. Heritage presently, without the gentleman seeing?’

Gertie, bewildered by the whole scene, took the note mechanically that the woman handed to her, and slipped it into her pocket. Then, fearing that the squire would be angry if she stayed talking, she called to Lion, who had remained with her, and was sniffing suspiciously at the intruder, and ran up the broad gravel path to the hall, while the woman, with a brief ‘Thank you,’ walked away in the direction of the village.

Inside the house poor Gertie soon found that things were ‘uncomfortable.’ The squire had suddenly gone off into one of his fits, and was storming and raging in his study. Gertie ran in to see what was the matter, and found Ruth vainly endeavouring to calm her husband and make him listen to reason.

The sight of Gertie aggravated him. She was a little spy—she was this, she was that. She was always talking to a parcel of tramps, and letting them learn everybody’s business. What did this strange woman want with Ruth? He wouldn’t have a stranger admitted to the place. How often was he to say so? They were all in league against him—that was what it was.

Poor Ruth sat and listened patiently. She was used to her husband’s paroxysms of temper and suspicion now. After the first great shock that had come upon her, she had set herself a task, and determined to bear all patiently. She had gathered from her husband’s ravings only that he accused himself of terrible crimes. At first she had believed that he was really guilty, but gradually she had persuaded herself that it was merely the remembrance of his earlier surroundings appearing to a disordered mind. The doctor had told her that men in her husband’s peculiar mental condition often accused themselves of terrible things, and that she was to take no notice of his words. It was but a phase of his disease.

Some strong and sudden excitement had caused a temporary derangement, that was all. Rest and quiet were all he needed. The rest and quiet he had, and Ruth in time had the satisfaction of seeing him grow more reasonable, and at last, so far as his mental condition was concerned, all fear was removed.

But his bodily health became worse and worse, and his nerves were always in a highly wrought condition. He could not bear the least noise, and the most trifling circumstance would fling him into an ungovernable rage. He was suspicious of everybody and of everything—of the servants, of Gertie, and of his wife.

Ruth had long thought seriously of getting him away to try a complete change of scene, and on this very morning that they had gone for their first drive she had been urging him to try a three months’ tour on the Continent.

He had jumped at the idea, and the thought of the change had seemed to put new life into him. He had been almost cheerful and amiable all through the drive, and it was not till they neared home that he fell into a brown study, and the old dull, worried look came upon his face.

The sight of Gertie talking to a strange woman at the lodge-gates, and the woman’s request to speak with Ruth, had produced a remarkable change.

He became violent and abusive, and poor Ruth had to put up with another ‘scene.’ It was some time before she could quiet him. Gertie assured him again and again that the woman had said nothing more than that she wanted to see Mrs. Heritage; and Ruth explained that it was probably only some one sent from the village to appeal to her charity.

Ruth and Gertie left the squire alone directly his temper had cooled down, for they knew by experience that after these paroxysms he would sit for hours gazing into vacancy and uttering no sound.

When they were at a safe distance from the study, Gertie, trembling and looking as shamefaced as though she were committing some awful crime, drew the strange woman’s letter from her poeket and gave it to Ruth.

‘I was to give you this,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I hope it wasn’t wrong to take it.’

Ruth took the letter, looking almost as guilty as Gertie.

Were her husband’s suspicions justified after all? Was this some new trouble coming upon them?

She put the letter in her pocket and went upstairs to her own room.

She would not open it while Gertie was standing by.

Alone in her bedroom, she turned the letter about and hesitated still.

‘Pshaw!’ she exclaimed, with a forced laugh. ‘What a goose I am! I dare say, after all, it’s somebody wants assistance.’

She opened the letter and read it. It was short, but there was enough in it to drive the blood from Ruth’s cheeks and make her tremble like an aspen-leaf.

‘Madam,

‘For your husband’s sake, and if you value his liberty, let me see you alone. If I cannot see you at the house when I call, meet me outside the lodge-gates at eight. It will be dark then. Do not delay, as I must return to London to-night. Show this to no one. All depends upon your secrecy.

‘A Friend.’

The letter fluttered down from Ruth’s trembling grasp on to the floor.

What did it mean?

Was it a trap? She had read of such things. No, the woman had asked at first openly to see her. She had come in the broad daylight and been refused.

For her husband’s sake!

What terrible secret was about to be revealed to her? She remembered now his wild words and the strange confessions he had poured out during his illness.

She would know the worst.

She made up her mind to go, and then the brave heart gave way. Surrounded on every side with mystery, her life, once so happy, had become almost a burden to her. She had hoped to be so happy with Edward, and everything had looked so bright once, and now—— Ruth Heritage buried her head in her hands and sobbed out an hysterical cry to heaven that God would guide her feet aright through the mazes of the rough, bleak road she and her husband were treading now.

CHAPTER LX.
A SECRET MEETING.

The night was pitch dark. There was not even a star in the sky to look down upon Ruth Heritage as she crept quietly ont of her house and went swiftly down the walk towards the lodge gate.

She was bound on an errand of love and mercy. She was going to see old Dame Huntley, the sexton’s widow, who lay dying down in the low-lying district, where the fever and ague had been busy of late. The servants knew that their mistress was bound to Dame Huntley’s, the squire knew it, and the lodge-keeper, who opened the gates, knew it, otherwise they might have wondered at Ruth going out alone at such a time.

Outside the lodge gates the woman who had given Gertie the letter was waiting.

Ruth trembled violently now.

She half hoped the woman would not be there.

Instinctively she paused.

‘Don’t be afraid, madam,’ said the mysterious woman, in a sweet, reassuring voice; ‘I only wanted a few words with you. I may not tell you who I am, but I have heard your story, and I pity you.’

‘You pity me!’ said Ruth, astonished. ‘Why?’

‘Because I know what is in store for you.’

They had walked along by the side of the park, away from the lodge gates to a place where the hedge grew thickly over a low-lying wall.

‘Do not speak in riddles,’ exclaimed Ruth. ‘If your object is a friendly one—as something in your manner tells me it is—speak freely and let me know the worst. You said my husband’s liberty was threatened—by whom?’

‘By justice.’

Ruth started back. The old suspicion rushed back upon her, and her face flushed hot, and then went deadly pale.

‘By justice?’ she stammered. ‘I do not understand.’

‘Listen to me, madam, for my time is short. There are those to whom the history of your husband’s past life is known. Soon they will accuse him openly. One of his former associates will turn Queen’s evidence against him. His deadliest enemy knows all. I tell you this now, because I have suffered myself, and I do not wish to be a party to that which will be a life-long separation between husband and wife. I am doing wrong, but I cannot help it.’

‘Yes—yes!’ cried Ruth, ‘I believe you. But what am I to do?’

‘Bid your husband leave this place to-night. Tell him that the secret of the great gold robbery is known to Mr. Gurth Egerton, and that to-morrow he may be arrested.’

Ruth gave a cry of horror—a cry which died away on her lips as a loud rustling by the hedge announced the presence of some one—some one who had perhaps overheard all.

Ruth and her informant walked quickly away.

‘Go now,’ said the woman. ‘You have no time to lose. Let your husband fly at once. To-morrow it will be too late.’

‘Yes; I will! I will!’ cried Ruth, almost fainting with horror and grief. ‘But tell me how you know this.’

‘How I know it!’ said the woman, passionately flinging up her veil. ‘Look at me well—you, whose husband I have saved—and remember me. I am the wife of George Heritage. I am the rightful mistress of these broad lands. My husband is a convict—a hunted felon. He was the victim of a vile plot, which your husband concocted. I know all now; and yet I forgive him for your sake. I want no wife’s agony on my head if it can be spared. Your husband ruined mine. I have come to save yours!’

Ruth buried her face in her hands as Bess poured out her wild words—words wrung from her heart.

‘Remember,’ said the woman, ‘to-morrow it will be too late.’

As she spoke she walked rapidly away, leaving Ruth rooted to the spot.

As soon as her limbs would obey her will, terrified and heartbroken, Ruth staggered, rather than walked, back to the hall.

Coming down the walk she met her husband.

‘Edward!’ she cried, ‘where are you going?’

‘Hush, Ruth!’ he exclaimed, seizing her arm. ‘Don’t say a word. I have heard all. I followed you. God forgive me for dragging you down to this! I will save you yet if I can.’

‘Oh, Edward! what would you do?’ she cried.

‘You call me Edward still?’ he said, with a look of gratitude in his eyes—‘you, who are so pure and good, though you know now the secret that has preyed upon and been slowly killing me for years? Ruth, can you ever forgive me for my base treachery in letting you link yourself with a God-forsaken wretch?’

‘Yes, Edward, I forgive you. You are my husband—my kind, loving husband—still.’

‘Thank God for those words, Ruth!’ he said. ‘Kiss me.’

He bent over her in the dark night, and his trembling lips pressed hers.

‘Where are you going?’ she said. ‘Let me go with you.’

‘No; there is only one chance now. I must find out Egerton at once. He is the enemy who is doing this. I believe I can silence him yet. If I can’t I must leave the country at once. Ruth, if we never meet again, God bless you!’

He tore himself from her agonized embrace, and went swiftly down the walk and along the road to the station.

All that night there was a faint light burning in Ruth’s room—the room where everything reminded her of the husband who had set out on a perilous journey from whence he might never return.

And all that night, with tears and sobs, Ruth knelt and prayed—prayed as she had never prayed before to the God she worshipped—for help and succour in this, the darkest hour of her life.

---

Late that evening Squire Heritage called at Mr. Seth Preene’s house.

Seth started up in astonishment.

‘Why, whatever brings you up to town?’

‘The worst,’ answered the squire. ‘Gurth Egerton is back, and knows all. He will split to-morrow.’

‘How do you know?’ gasped Preene,

‘A woman has split on the plot,’ answered the squire. ‘There s only one chance now. Do you know where Egerton is?’

‘Yes, at his house—at Birnie’s that is now.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I followed him from Heckett’s only yesterday. I wondered what he was doing there.’

‘At Heckett’s!’ gasped the squire. ‘Is Heckett still—still—alive?’

‘Yes,’ answered Preene, looking steadily at his companion; but he won’t do much more mischief. He’s in a galloping consumption.’

The squire heaved a deep sigh. At least he was free from the brand of Cain.

‘I’ve been going to write to you once or twice about the goings-on there,’ said Preene; ‘only you agreed to see Heckett, last time you were here, and square him, and as I never heard any more from you, I concluded you had. There’s some people staying in his house, and I can’t make out who they are.’

The squire scarcely heard what Preene said. He was turning over a desperate scheme in his mind. If he could secure Gurth, he could secure Heckett too. He would brave the worst and see Egerton at once.

‘By Heaven!’ he muttered to himself, ‘I’ll play my last card, ‘and hazard all upon it. Let Garth Egerton look to himself, for now it is a struggle to the death. I will not fall alone.’

CHAPTER LXI.
A LATE VISITOR FOR MR. EGERTON.

Squire Heritage, or Edward Marston, as we may now again call him, leapt into a cab when he left Preene, and bade the man drive to Birnie’s address.

It was then close on midnight.

He was playing a desperate game in venturing thus into the lion’s den, but it was the last chance left him.

If he could silence Egerton he might purchase a respite from Heckett even now. Heckett was evidently dying, and had no longer fear or trouble for himself. He had escaped from the Serpentine that night, and had made Egerton the instrument of his vengeance. But the blow had not actually fallen, and he might yet stay the uplifted hand. If he could, there might be some peace in store for him. He did not care for himself. He was sick and tired of it all. His punishment was heavier than he could bear; but for Ruth’s sake he would strive and struggle yet to fight against fate. Let the shame be spared to her of being a felon’s wife.

‘Poor Ruth! Noble Ruth!’ he thought. ‘She knows me now in all my hideous impurity, and yet she forgives me. Oh, how different things might have been!’

Ah, me! that ‘might have been!’ It is the anthem of the lost soul, the despairing cry of the sinner caught in the toils of his sin.

It was a little past midnight when Marston rang the doctor’s bell, but the lights were still burning in the house.

‘I want to see Mr. Egerton, if he is in, on important business.’

‘He is not in yet, sir,’ said the servant. ‘He and the doctor are at the theatre, and have not returned yet.’

‘I will wait,’ said Marston, brushing past the man into the hall. ‘My business with him is of the utmost importance.’

‘Will you step into the library, sir?’ said the servant, overawed by the manner of this imperious visitor.

Marston followed the Servant, who turned up the lights and left him.

The evening papers, unfolded, were lying on the table.

Marston picked up one casually, and glanced along the columns.

Suddenly his eye was arrested by a name, and he read the paragraph carefully. It was headed, ‘A Message from the Sea,’ and ran as follows:

‘This morning, as some fishermen were off the coast of————, one of them picked up a bottle which was floating past them and brought it ashore. On opening it it was found to contain a piece of paper, on which was something written in pencil, of which the following words only are decipherable, the salt water having soaked through a faulty cork and obliterated the remainder:

‘“On board the ‘“The ship is sinking rapidly. I, Gurt am about to die, do solemnly declare tha of September, 18—, I stabbed my cousin, Ra house, kept by a man named Heck I freely make this confession, an

‘The bottle with its contents has been handed to the police, though it is doubtful if any clue will ever be obtained to the meaning of this extraordinary message from the sea.’

Yes, to one man there was a clue.

Edward Marston read each word, and it seemed as though Providence had sent the message to him. His pale facc glowed; his sunken eyes gleamed.

He had Gurth Egerton’s life in his hand.

Let him. come now—he was ready.

He saw it all.

When the Bon Espoir was sinking, Egerton, with the terrors of death upon him, had hurled this into the sea; it had floated about for years, to be cast ashore now—now, when such a revelation placed the murderer at the mercy of the man he would injure.

Marston’s suspicions were confirmed. He had always suspected that Ralph Egerton had met with foul play.

He could hardly believe that the paper he held in his hand was real—that he was not the victim of some nightmare, from which he would presently awake.

While he sat staring at the paper, and reading it again and again, there came a ring at the bell.

Marston folded the paper and threw it back in its place.

The next moment Gurth Egerton came into the room.

The servant had told him a gentleman wanted to see him.

He started violently when he saw Marston.

‘You here?’ he exclaimed.

‘Yes’, Mr. Egerton,’ said Marston calmly. ‘I’ve just come to pay you a little friendly visit before I leave the country.’

Egerton wondered what he should do. On the morrow he was prepared to denounce this man to justice—not openly, but through George Heritage—and here was the man sitting quietly and calmly in his house.

Egerton could not at once conceal his agitation at being thus confronted by his intended victim.

‘You don’t seem pleased to see me,’ said Marston.

‘Well, to tell you the truth, my dear fellow,’ answered Gurth, ‘I’m not. What have you come for?’

‘On the old business. Just to have a chat. When are you going to split on your old pal?’

Egerton’s face flushed crimson, and he stammered out, ‘I—I—don’t understand you!’

‘Tut, tut, man! Let’s play cards on the table. We’re not the raw lads we were in the old days when you were plucking your cousin Ralph.’

‘It’s a lie!’ said Egerton fiercely. ‘I never plucked Ralph, as you call it.’

‘My dear fellow, what a fuss you make about such a paltry accusation. Why, if I had said you murdered him you couldn’t look more indignant.’

‘Enough!’ exclaimed Egerton with an oath. ‘You have not come here to talk about Ralph Egerton.’

‘Indeed I have!’ said Marston. ‘And be civil, if you can, for I’ve come to do you a service. You’re a careless fellow, to leave a confession of murder kicking about on the sea.’

Egerton leapt to his feet and seized Marston by the arm. His face was a deathly white, and his lips trembled, while great beads of perspiration stood upon his brow.

‘Hush!’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Not so loud. What do you mean?’

‘Lord, man! what’s the matter? You don’t think I’m going to round on you, do you? I only want you to do me a favour, and I’ll do you one in return. I have in my possession your written confession of the murder of your cousin, signed by you. You wrote it when the Bon Espoir was sinking—and I have it.’

‘The sea has given up her dead!’ cried Egerton, starting back, his face distorted with terror.

‘It has,’ said Marston quietly. ‘Your life is in my hands. Come, you were going to play me a scurvy trick. I’ll return good for evil. This confession is in my hands. Do what I ask you, and you shall have it and tear it up.’

‘Name your terms,’ groaned Egerton, sinking into a chair and burying his face in his hands. ‘I am at your mercy.’

‘My terms are simple. Come with me now to Heckett’s and make him swear not to betray me. I know the plot between you. I am not so easily fooled as you think. Come and do this, and I will place the confession in your hands.’

‘You swear it?’

‘I swear it. But you don’t want an oath from an old friend like me, I should think.’

‘I will do it,’ said Egerton eagerly. ‘Come—come at once. Not a word to Birnie—not a word to any living soul. Come!’

Egerton went out first into the hall. Marston followed, quietly slipping the evening paper into his pocket as he went out. The servant was in the hall.

‘Tell the doctor I’m gone out with my friend,’ said Egerton to the servant; ‘and don’t sit up for me. I’ll let myself in with the key.’

The two men went out, and the servant closed the door after them.

‘What’s up, I wonder?’ said that worthy to himself. ‘Here’s a gent, as don’t give a name, comes in as white as a ghost, and Mister Egerton comes in afterwards as jolly as a sandboy, and presently they goes out, and then it’s the gent as looks as jolly as a sandboy, and Mister Egerton as is as white as a ghost. It’s rum—very rum!’

With which criticism on passing events, the aforesaid observer of countenances went downstairs to the kitchen to finish his disturbed supper and enjoy a quiet half-hour over Bell’s Life before retiring for the night.

CHAPTER LXII.
A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.

It was one o’clock in the morning when Egerton and Marston reached Heckett’s house.

During the journey neither had spoken. Each was busy with his own thoughts.

Gurth knocked a certain number of times, and Heckett, lying tossing on the little bed in the back room, knew who was there, for he did not have his door opened at all hours to every one.

Lately Egerton had been a constant visitor, for Heckett—too ill now to move—had confided his schemes to him, and entrusted him with the disposal of his secrets, and his effects when he should be dead.

Heckett was very ill to-night, and Bess was still sitting up with him. She had been out on business, and had not come back till late.

George had watched by the old man all day, and had gone to bed tired out.

‘It’s Egerton,’ said the old dog-fancier, lifting his quick ears from the pillow; ‘that’s his knock. What’s in the wind now?

‘Go and let him in, missus—there’s a dear!’

Bess went to the door and started back. There were two men outside.

‘It’s all right,’ said Egerton. ‘This is a friend. Come in.’

Gurth led the way iuto Heckett’s room, and Marston followed him.

Bess, fancying she should be de trop, went on upstairs to the little room which she and her husband occupied, and where he had been unsuspected and secure ever since that eventful night in Hyde Park.

Their troubles were soon to be over now, and they were patient, for George had, through Heckett, acquired, sufficient evidence to prove how the whole scheme was concocted.

Heckett, who knew how near his end was, had agreed to confess everything, and to leave the proof of what he stated with George, so that he might use them. He had ascertained through the police that an accomplice giving evidence which would secure the capture of the gold robbers would be pardoned, and on the morrow justice was to have the whole plot laid in her hands.

‘To-morrow,’ said George, as Bess came into the room. ‘Tomorrow is here, Bess, already. In twelve hours the first step will have been taken to prove my innocence and take this horrible shame from my name. Once free from this odious stigma, I can work, my darling, and make a home for you, where, with God’s help, we shall be happier than had we had the lands and the fortune my poor father willed away to the stranger—to come into the hands of the very man who was the ruin of his son. But to-morrow we shall strike the first blow for freedom. Nay, today. What time is it?’

‘Past one,’ answered Bess; ‘and there’s Mr. Egerton come with a strange gentleman to see Heckett.’

‘It’s about this business, I expect,’ answered George. ‘Heigho! I’m tired. Let’s go to sleep, and wake to find the new day dawned—the day that is to do so much for us.’

While the escaped convict was conversing so hopefully above, the astonished Heckett found Marston by his side below.

Weak as he was, he rapped out an oath as he saw his would-be assassin enter the room.

It was a stormy interview at first, but gradually Heckett calmed down. In his confidence he had told Egerton everything, and now Egerton urged him to accept Marston’s proposition, and hold his peace. What good would Heckett do himself? He would have his revenge, that was true—but what use was revenge to a dying man?

Heckett listened calmly at last, and when Egerton had finished and Marston had added his argument, letting Heckett see pretty plainly that he could not injure him without injuring Egerton also, and dropping something more than a hint that the old story of Ralph Egerton’s death in Heckett’s gambling-house might have to be gone into too, if he were forced into a corner—when all this had been said, Heckett closed his eyes, and lay back on his pillow thinking.

‘I can’t promise,’ he said. ‘There’s others besides myself as ‘as got accounts to reckon with you. I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you a week—a dear week—to put daylight between yourself and the tecs.’

‘I’ll accept that offer,’ said Marston, quietly.

He saw there was nothing better to be got from Heckett that night. In a week much might be done. In the mean time he knew he should hold Egerton safe. Delay was all he wanted now. Given a week, he might yet surmount every obstacle.

He rose from the chair by Heckett’s side, and prepared to go.

As he did so Heckett beckoned to him.

‘There’s one thing you can do for me,’ he said. ‘I believe as you know what’s become o’ my gal. I ain’t got long to be here now, and I’d like to see my poor Gertie’s gal afore I go. There’s some things o’ her poor mother’s as I’ve kept for many a year as I’d like her to have. If you know where she’s been all these years, maybe you’ll tell her her old grandfather’s dyin’, and he’d die easier if he could see her again, and ask her to forgive him.’

‘You shall see Gertie if I can find her,’ said Marston eagerly.

A new idea had come to him. Gertie might induce the old man to hold his peace for ever. He had almost forgotten that Ruth’s protégée was Heckett’s child.

Gurth and Marston bade the old man ‘Good-night,’ and went out into the deserted street.

‘He’s sinking fast,’ said Gurth. ‘Birnie saw him the other day, and says he can’t live a month. Now I’ve kept my promise—keep yours.’

They had walked to the corner of the street.

‘Oh—ah—yes,’ answered Marston, quietly; ‘that confession. I promised it to you when you had silenced Heckett You have only silenced him for a week, and he will live a month. But, my dear fellow, I always like to treat an old friend well. See here——’

He pulled the newspaper out of his pocket and handed it to Gurth.

‘There you are, you see—there is your confession. The original is in the hands of the police. You’re fond of trips to America—I should try another at once if I were you. Good-bye.’

Marston turned on his heel, and walked rapidly away, leaving Gurth Egerton glued to the spot with horror. He read and reread the paragraph by the flickering light of the lamp. At any moment he might be arrested. The clue had been found by Marston. Why should it not be found by others? and then—He dared not think of it. He felt a choking sensation at his throat.

He would go back home at once and see Birnie, confide all to him, and take his advice. Birnie was the only friend he had in the world. He would go away again. There was nothing else for it. It seemed as though his wandering feet were to find no rest in this world. He was to be pursued everywhere by the shadow of the rash crime committed in his youth, and buried, as he fondly hoped, for ever.

And now the sea had borne witness against him. How had the confession he had made to the clergyman in the hour of imminent death been so miraculously preserved?

He could not think.

He only knew that a voice had cried out against him from the far-off seas, and that at the present moment his confession of the murder of his cousin was in the hands of the police.

CHAPTER LXIII.
EDWARD MARSTON GOES HOME.

When Gurth Egerton got home he found Birnie still sitting up and smoking. The doctor had gone home, after the theatre, with some friends to a supper party, and had only just returned, although it was nearly four o’clock.

As Gurth let himself in the doctor called out to him.

‘I’m glad you’re up, Birnie,’ said Gurth, ‘for I want to speak to you.’

‘Why, how pale you are, old fellow! You look as if you’d seen a ghost.’

‘So I have,’ answered Gurth, sinking into a chair; ‘or something quite as bad. That cursed business about Ralph has turned up again!’

Birnie sat for a moment looking at his companion, and said nothing. For a long time past he had been wishing to speak to Gurth on this very subject, and yet he felt it was an awkward one to approach.

He was firmly established in his profession, he had made a fortune, he had not the slightest need now of pecuniary assistance, and he felt that some day Gurth might be tempted to do some stupid thing, and then the blame would rest on him.

Birnie had all his life long let nothing trouble him, and had always taken a passive rather that an active part in the search after fortune. He objected now to these periodical alarms of Mr. Egerton’s. He didn’t want to be bothered with his friend’s business any more. He felt that the time had come when it would be perhaps as well if he and Gurth Egerton really did have a little conversation about the late Mr. Ralph Egerton.

‘Well, what about poor Ralph now?’ asked the doctor, after he had determined on his course of action and let a big ring of smoke float gracefully from his lips.

‘Birnie, I must make a clean breast of it,’ said Gurth. ‘It’s no good beating about the bush. You know that unfortunate night when in the heat of a quarrel I stabbed Ralph, and he died. It wasn’t murder, but the world might call it hard names. I ran away, like the coward that I am, and you sent me word that he was dead, that you had signed the certificate, and that I could come back. I have always been grateful to you, Birnie, and I think I’ve shown it, for you helped me out of a horrible mess.

I tremble to think what might have happened but for you.’

‘It might have been a little awkward, certainly,’ said Birnie.

‘Indeed it might. Well, when the Bon Espoir went down, and I thought it was all up with me, like a cursed fool that I was, I wrote out a confession and gave it to a clergyman. I confessed that I had stabbed my cousin.’

‘Good Heavens! you didn’t do that?’ exclaimed Birnie, his calm face agitated for once.

‘Yes, I did. And that cursed confession must have been preserved, in some miraculous way, when the ship went down, for it floated ashore yesterday and my written words are in the papers. Thank goodness! it’s not all decipherable; but there’s no knowing what chemicals may do. Birnie, I must go away again; and this time, I fear, for good. There is God’s hand in this. I shall never know what peace is again.’

Dr. Birnie was fairly astonished. Gurth had never taken him so completely into his confidence as this before.

‘Gurth Egerton,’ he said, presently, ‘you must be mad!’

‘I was, to sign such a damning document as that.’

‘And to confess a crime which you never committed.’

‘But,’ stammered Gurth, ‘you know I——’

‘I know you stabbed your cousin, certainly, but it was only a scratch. I thought I told you I signed the certificate of his death.’

‘Yes. To hide the real cause.’

‘Nonsense! I signed a proper certificate. Ralph Egerton died from what I wrote on the certificate—from a complication of diseases brought on by drink. The wound had nothing to do with it. The bleeding did him good, if anything.’

Gurth Egerton sat like a man in a dream.

‘Do you mean that?’

‘I mean you’ve been accusing yourself all these years of a crime you never committed. I called a physician in to Ralph—he can be produced, if necessary. The cause of death was what I say.’

‘Why, in God’s name, did you never tell me this before, Birnie?’ exclaimed Egerton, still half dazed.

‘I never knew you accused yourself of the murder,’ said the doctor, quietly. ‘I showed you the certificate.’

‘Yes, but I thought——’

‘My dear fellow,’ exclaimed Birnie, interrupting, ‘you’ve been the victim of an hallucination. The sooner you get rid of the idea that you murdered your cousin, the better; and as to this confession, they’ll never decipher any more. The salt water has destroyed the paper, I take it. No chemistry can restore what does not exist.’

Gurth Egerton fetched a deep breath. He had punished himself all these years for his evil passions. He had fled when no man pursued. God had marked out his penalty, and he had had to bear it.

And Marston had used this mare’s nest to frighten him with. Marston believed it true, and had triumphed over him. Ah, now the tables were turned. He was safe, and Marston was still at his mercy.

---

Edward Marston went to the Waterloo terminus and waited for the first train that would take him down home.

The first train left at six, and he walked about until it started. He was anxious to go down at once, and relieve his poor Ruth’s suspense. He had gained a week’s respite, and removed a dangerous enemy from his path. He would send Gertie up to the dying man at once. Gertie might plead with him for longer grace still for those who had been so good to her. At any rate, while things were as they were, it would be as well that the girl should be out of the way.

Hope was strong in his breast that morning as he took his seat in the train. During one short night a change—a great change—had taken place. He had faced his enemy and conquered him, and diplomacy might easily accomplish the rest.

He would give up everything willingly, if need be. All he asked was to get away with Ruth somewhere where he could live quietly and end his days in making his peace with God.

Oh, if he came through this crisis, how earnestly, how truly, he would repent! He leaned back in the carriage, as the train rushed on through the early morning, and thought of the poor heartbroken woman at home, whose love for him had been so good and pure and noble, and his eyes filled with tears.

He pictured her at home, hoping and praying through the weary watches of the night for his safety. He could see her cheeks flush with joy as she heard his step upon the walk, and knew that he had come back to her safe from the jaws of his deadly peril.

He pictured her hiding her head upon his guilty breast, and thanking the good God who had restored him to her once again, and then he forgot everything, save a sensation of horrible anguish, he heard a crash, the shrieks of men and women, he felt a terrible blow and the hot blood trickling down his face, sharp pain shot across his chest, and he knew no more till he found himself lying in a strange place, where he could not say, and he had a dull, dim sense of voices round him buzzing and humming like innumerable bees.

He opened his eyes, and then he felt that he was terribly weak. He looked up and saw Ruth—his Ruth, with swollen eyes and a white, worn face, bending over him.

Then he remembered that he had been on the railway, and that there had been a collision. He could not move; he felt that there were bandages about his body, and he had a fearful, terrible pain in his chest and body. He tried to speak, and his voice came in a thin, weak whisper.

Ruth was bending low, kneeling by his side. There were grave doctors standing by the bed, and a woman who looked like a nurse.

Then he knew that he was in the hospital. His head felt, oh, to queer and strange, and everything seemed swimming about him.

‘Do you know me, Edward darling?’ whispered Ruth.

‘Yes, you are Ruth,’ he said, feebly. ‘Am I hurt?’

Ruth’s sweet eyes were filled with tears again in a moment, and she nodded her head.

The doctor came up and bent over him, and looked at him anxiously.

‘You are a doctor?’ whispered the injured man.

‘Yes.’

‘Am I much hurt?’

‘My poor fellow,’ said the doctor, ‘we must hope; but it is my duty to tell you that there is the gravest danger in your case. It is only right that you should know it.’

He had guessed it.

He knew what the grave faces and the weeping wife meant. He was in danger of his life. He knew what the awful pain meant, and the weakness that almost robbed him of his voice.

‘You won’t go away, Ruth?’ he said, feebly, as his wife bent towards him.

‘No,’ sobbed Ruth; ‘I shall not leave you. They will let me stay.’

The doctors were still by the bedside.

He saw them—he saw Ruth—he dimly remembered all that had happened now, and, just as the remembrance was getting clearer, everything faded, and he relapsed into unconsciousness again.

Ruth, watching by the unconscious form of her husband knew the worst. In mercy the doctors had told her. Her husband had been brought in from the railway with terrible internal injuries, which must be fatal. He had been identified as Squire Heritage by the papers in his pocket, and his wife had been sent for by the railway officials. He was dying. The doctor told her he would not live four-and-twenty hours. Science could do nothing.

It was near midnight when he came to himself again, and a great screen was drawn about his bed. He was weaker now, but he did not feel the pain so much; only there was a sensation of floating away. His body seemed too light to stay where it was. He looked up, and saw his wife’s face pressed down on the pillow by his, her sweet eyes watching for the return of consciousness.

‘Ruth, my darling,’ he whispered, ‘keep your face there a little while.’

She kissed him gently, her hot tears wetting the pillow.

‘Don’t cry, Ruth,’ he said. ‘It is better so. I shall escape them all now. Pray for me, Ruth. Had I lived I might have tried to be better, but God knows best.’

He lay for a moment and said nothing.

His breath was coming faster and faster, and the gray shadows were settling down upon his face.

Presently he closed his eyes again and sighed deeply.

For a moment all was still.

Then he opened his eyes and fixed them lovingly on Ruth’s face,

‘Smile, my darling,’ he said. ‘Let your smile be the last thing I see on earth. Forgive me for all the wrong I have done, and pray for me sometimes. The only happiness I ever knew in this world was your love. God bless you, my own Ruth!’

She smiled at him as he bade—smiled through the tears that she could not check.

His lips moved feebly, and she bent down till they touched her in one last feeble kiss.

‘God—bless you—Ruth,’ he murmured, but so faintly that she could hardly hear it.

He never spoke again.

Her name was the last word upon his lips.

CHAPTER LXIV.
GURTH AND HECKETT.

The news of the terrible accident on the railway had travelled far, and Edward Heritage’s name had been seen among the list of the injured.

The identity of Squire Heritage with Edward Marston was known to Birnie and Egerton. The latter was the first to bring the news of his death to Josh Heckett. The sudden and tragic termination of Marston’s career materially altered the aspect of affairs. He was beyond the reach of all vengeance now.

Gurth, relieved by the discovery that the crime he had accused himself of for years had existed only in his imagination, was in a sufficiently charitable frame of mind to bear no malice towards a man who could now do him no further harm. He had always had an intuitive dread of Marston. Birnie had played his cards so well that both Gurth and Heckett had always believed their old comrade knew more about the affray in Heckett’s gambling-den than he cared to say.

‘And so he’s the fust to go arter all!’ exclaimed the old man, raising himself with difficulty in the arm-chair where George had placed him. He was so weak now that he required assistance to get across the room. That burly frame had shrunk, and his clothes hung loosely about him. His massive jaws were sunken, and the fierce eyes, large and bright with the fatal light of consumption, were set in deep violet circles. Every now and then a distressing cough shook him as a whirlwind shakes the old tree, and the great beads of perspiration caused by the paroxysm trickled down his attenuated face.

‘You’re very bad, Josh,’ said Gurth, as he sat by his side.

‘Ay, ay,’ answered the old man. ‘I’m goin’ to make a die of it, mate. Josh Heckett’s had his sentence. I’m to be put away for good and all.’

‘Have you made your will?’

‘Will!’ said the old man, almost fiercely. ‘Who have I got to leave anything to, and what have I got, eh?’

Gurth smiled.

‘You know best, Josh. I suppose you haven’t lived on air all these years.’

‘No—I ain’t—but-’ He hesitated a moment, then added, with a resolute accent, as though he had made a sudden le-solve, ‘There, it’s no good a-playing dark any longer. You ain’t likely to want my bit o’ property, so I’ll tell you what I’d like to do. I wants to leave all I got to some charity—what’s a good’un?’

‘Charity!’ said Gurth. ‘But what about your grand-daughter? Charity begins at home.’

Josh shook his head.

‘I shouldn’t like to leave what I got to her. She’s a-comin’ bimeby. Mrs. Smith’s gone for her to come and see me afore I die.’

‘Gone for her—where?’

‘She’s been kept by Marston at his grand place all this time. Mrs. Smith told me about the young gal as was there, and I see how it was in a minnit. It was that teacher-lady as used to come here, as he married—she ‘ticed her away.’

‘Ah!’ said Gurth, shaking his head, ‘there was some deep game on, Josh, in Marston keeping Gertie dark from you. Now, whatever it was, it’s beyond his reach now.’

‘I dunuo,’ answered Heckett. ‘I think it was the teacher-lady as was at the bottom on it. Poor Gertie! I didn’t use her as I oughter a done. For my poor dead girl’s sake I oughter a kept her out o’ my swim.’

‘And yet even now you are going to leave your property away from her!’

‘Yes, I am. Do you think she’d thank me for it, seein’ how I got it—by robbin’ and swindlin’? It’s dirty money, governor, and I wants to do a lot o’ good with it. I should like it for to go to a chapel, or a church, or something. There cannot be no harm in that, ean there?’

‘Is it in money?’

‘Well, not all on it; a good bit is. There’s a lot o’ plate and a lot o’ joolery, but I suppose that wouldn’t matter. Churches and chapels don’t ask no questions when they has property left ‘em, do they?’ Gurth smiled.

‘Can’t say, Josh. I haven’t any experience.’

‘At any rate, the gal don’t soil her fingers with none on it. I should like to leave her summat, too—summat as I come by all right and proper—summat as I needn’t be ashamed on; but I’m blest if I ever earned much on the square, when I comes to think it over.’

Gurth turned the conversation.

‘What are you going to do about the Smiths now?’ he said.

‘Do? Why, see’em right, come what may. Marston’s dead, and nothing as I can say will hurt him. I’m a-going to blow the whole gaff—make what they call a clean breast on it. I couldn’t die easy if I thought as I’d left that poor chap to be collared again.’

‘When are you going to do it?’

‘Bimeby,’ answered the old man uneasily; ‘bimeby.’

It was evident that although he had made up his mind to put himself at the mercy of the law, he was loth to do so while the least chance of life remained.

Gurth Egerton left him much perplexed about the disposal of his property, and went away charged with a message to Birnie.

‘Tell him to give us a look in if he can,’ groaned Josh ‘I’m deuced bad, and I can’t sleep. If he sees me he can give me summat as will let me sleep; he’s done it afore. Tell him I shan’t trouble him much longer, but I’d like for to see him if I can.’

Gurth took the thin, trembling hand of the old man and shook it gently.

‘I’ll tell him,’ he said. ‘He’ll come and see you, Josh. He doesn’t forget old friends, though he is such a big pot now.’

‘No, no,’ said Heckett; ‘he’ll come—he’ll come. I want him to tell me how long I shall live, for I’ve a lot to do—a lot to do.’

Wearied with the exertion of talking, old Heckett sank back in his chair and closed his eyes, and Gurth, with a farewell nod, went out and closed the door softly behind him.

CHAPTER LXV.
MR. JABEZ DUCK DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF AT LAST.

Mr. and Mrs. Jabez Duck, by saying very little to each other, managed to avoid those scenes of wordy warfare which are considered part and parcel of English domestic institutions. Indeed, so common is it for husband and wife to disagree when they commence to converse, that the expression, ‘Master and missus have been having a few words,’ is quite understood in the kitchen to mean that ‘Master and missus’ have been having a quarrel.

Mrs. Turvey, having once become Mrs. Duck, and mistress of an establishment of her own, was quite content to let Jabez have his own way so long as he kept out of hers. Her triumph over Georgina was dear to her woman’s heart, and the greatest enjoyment she had in her married life was to stand at the window and glare at the opposite house, where Miss Duck, still a spinster, exhibited ‘Apartments to Let’ in her window.

Georgina returned the glare with interest whenever she perceived it, and time, instead of healing the feud, seemed to increase it. Jabez endeavoured to effect a reconciliation, but as each attempt only brought him the abuse of both parties, he finally gave it up, and determined to let things take their course.

Whenever Jabez visited his sister he was prepared for a lecture on his folly in throwing himself away, and also for sundry warnings as to the conduct of his better-half. He didn’t know half that went on. A nice stocking his wife was putting by. The lodgers were robbed, and he got the credit of it. The house was untidy—everybody talked about it. Everything that feminine malice could invent Miss Duck launched at the head of the lady who had, as her friend, Miss Jackson, feelingly observed, divided the children who once sat on one mother’s knee.

As a rule, the observations of his sister made no impression upon Mr. Duck. He had served an apprenticeship, and knew from personal experience how Georgina could magnify trifles into importance.

But one day Georgina flung a reproach at his head which did not pass off without doing mischief. She boldly declared that during his absence a remarkably dissipated and disreputable individual of the male sex was in the habit of interviewing Mrs. Duck, and generally left with his pockets bulging out; and on one occasion lately Miss Georgina noticed and declared that the said individual had exhibited all the signs of excessive intoxication on the front-door step, and had been seen to leave, after a stormy interview with Mrs. Duck at the front door, clutching some silver money in a dirty and trembling hand.

Miss Georgina’s story was so circumstantial that Jabez believed there was something in it, and determined to cross-examine his better-half. But, before he left, Miss Duck entreated him not to name her as his informant, as she didn’t want her windows broken, or bad language flung down her area to the annoyance of her lodgers.

Mr. Duck ridiculed the idea that his wife could so far forget herself, but he promised Georgina that she should not be implicated.

He left in a very uncomfortable state, and his sister watched him across the road, inwardly delighted at the idea that she had fired the train, and that her rival would come in for the full benefit of the explosion.

Jabez nursed his wrath that evening until he had had a good tea, and no temper on his good lady’s part could interfere with his enjoyment of that favourite meal.

But when the tea-things had been cleared away, and Mrs. Duck had settled herself down in her chair to make out the first-floor’s bill, which had been standing for a month, Jabez cleared his throat, and, picking up a newspaper, prepared to open a masked battery upon the good lady from behind it.

He was just about to inquire casually who the gentleman was who called so frequently during his absence, when there came a loud knock at the door.

The servant was upstairs, Mrs. Duck was busy with her book, so Jabez proceeded to the door himself. He opened it, and let in a tremendous whiff of spirits and a voice which, in a thick, husky whisper, demanded if Mrs. Duck was at home.

Jabez surveyed the visitor in astonishment. He was a middle-aged man, very shabbily dressed, and with bloated features, red, watery eyes, and a ragged, untidy beard.

‘And pray what do you want with Mrs. Duck?’ exclaimed Jabez, when he had recovered from his surprise.

‘Hulloh, guv’nor!’ exclaimed the man, with an attempt at a smile which gradually merged into a hiccough; ‘why’sh my old fren’ Shabez—dam’ fool’sh married my sis’er! Glash shee you.’

Jabez looked at the man silently for a moment. His words were a revelation. This, then, was the drunken visitor Georgina had seen so often. Mrs. Duck’s brother had certainly not prospered in business lately.

While Jabez was hesitating whether he should ask his brother-in law in or not, that gentleman relieved him of all further anxiety by walking or rather rolling in himself, and seizing Jabez affectionately in his arms.

‘Gos blesh you, ol’ fler,’ he said. ‘Why’sh years since shaw you lasht. Know old shong—

‘“‘Tish yersh since las’ we met,

And we may not meeteh again.”’

Mr. Turvey, having raised his voice and howled forth the above in a melancholy manner, here fell exhausted with the exertion and overcome by his feelings on to Mr. Jabez’s breast and wept copiously.

Mrs. Duck, alarmed at the strange operatic performance in the hall, came running out, and, beholding her drunken brother helpless in her husband’s arms, immediately began to upbraid the former in an excited and hysterical manner.

‘Oh, you good-for-nothing brute!’ she exclaimed, ‘to come here disgracing me like this! Oh, you bad man! Ain’t I done everything I could for you? Oh, you wicked wretch!’

Mrs. Duck’s feelings were working up to the screaming-point, when Jabez, alarmed lest the noise should reach the lodgers and cause a scandal, took the bull by the horns and dragged Mr. Turvey into the parlour.

‘Come in, Susan, and shut the door,’ he groaned. ‘This is dreadful—very dreadful!’

‘It isn’t my fault, Jabez,’ sobbed Mrs. Duck; ‘indeed it isn’t! I didn’t want him to come here. I was ashamed for you to see him, and I done what I could to keep him away. I’ve given him money, and food, and clothes, and it’s all gone in drink. He’s a bad man—a bad man—though he is my own flesh and blood, as the saying is. Ugh!’

This last exclamation was addressed to Mr. Turvey, whom Jabez had deposited on a chair, where he was vainly endeavouring to catch an imaginary fly with his hand—a proceeding which ended in his falling out of the chair on to the fender, and bringing down the fire-irons with a terrible clatter.

‘What’s to be done with him?’ exclaimed Mrs. Duck, wringing her hands.

‘Wash’ be done?’ said Mr. Turvey, struggling into a sitting posture; ‘wash’ be done wi’ me? I’m lasht rosh shammer left blooming ‘lone; all lovlish companshish ish faded and gone—eh, Shabez?—faded and gone, old cock—fa’ angone.’

The remembrance of the fall of his lovely companions was too much for Mr. Turvey, and once more his voice became lachrymose.

‘Shuck me oush!’ he exclaimed; ‘shuck mo oush! Lesh die in the streetsh; all monsh gone.’

‘Really, Susan,’ said Mr. Duck, knitting his brows and assuming an attitude of firmness, ‘I am very sorry to see your relative in this condition. It’s disgraceful—most disgraceful!’

‘Dishgraceful!’ exclaimed Mr. Turvey, dragging himself up into a horizontal position and dropping heavily into the chair again; ‘wheresh dishgrace? Look here, Mishter Duck, I’m har’ up. Send me oush country. “To the Wesht, to the Wesht—land o’ the free; Missh—Misshouri “—cetra; you know; or elsh I shall give shelf up to the polish.’ Mrs. Duck screamed.

‘Don’t listen to what he’s going to say, Jabez; it isn’t true; he’s saying it to extort money.’

Mr. Jabez had not been an inquiry agent all these years without having acquired a habit of pricking up his ears. The mention of police aroused his attention at once, and then he remembered the mystery of the thousand pounds. He saw that if he wanted Mr. Turvey to become communicative he had better irritate him.

‘Give yourself up to the police!’ he exclaimed; ‘if you don’t leave my house instantly I’ll save you the trouble.’

For a moment Mr. Turvey looked at Mr. Duck as though he was wondering if he meant it. Gradually his features assumed an expression of rage which would have been comical had not the hideous surroundings of drunkenness overpowered all.

‘You—will!’ he exclaimed, speaking slowly and dully, at first with an effort, but more clearly and rapidly as passion sobered him for a time. ‘You will! Do! Then you’ll have to send her to quod with me.’

Mrs. Duck hid her face.

‘It isn’t true, Jabez,’ she moaned; ‘it isn’t true.’

‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Mr. Turvey, staggering up to the table, and bringing his dirty hand down on it with a blow. ‘Look at her! She won’t do anything more for me, she won’t! Here!’ he shouted, ‘police! police! come and take me! Come and arrest the great gold robber, Turvey the guard! You’ve done it now, Susan! It’s too late! Police! police!’

He rushed about the room in his drunken rage, smashing the things out of his way, and yelling ‘Police!’ at the top of his voice. Mrs. Turvey rushed to the door, her face white as death and her lips parted in terror. Jabez seized the furious drunkard in his arms and, exerting all his strength, forced him down into a chair.

‘Hold your row, you fool!’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you want the whole street about our ears?’

For a moment the man seemed inclined to struggle. He made one violent effort, and then began to sob, and whine, and maudle again.

An hour later Mr. Turvey was fast asleep on the sofa in Mr. Duck’s parlour.

Mr. Duck had agreed to allow him to remain for the night, for he was very anxious to question Mr. Turvey when his present intoxication should have passed off.

He had heard quite enough to know that he had the secret of the great gold robbery within his four walls, and he had seen a means by which he could not only earn a large reward, but the fame he had thirsted for all his life, without in any way injuring the esteemed individual whom he had the honour to call brother-in law.

He quite understood about the thousand pounds that had so mysteriously disappeared, and he had learned now for the first time from Susan that her brother, having dissipated every penny of it, had latterly returned and endeavoured to sponge upon her.

‘I lost the money that time,’ said Mr. Duck to himself, with a chuckle; ‘but if I can pump him, and get the names of his accomplices from him, I shall make a thousand out of the relationship yet.’

---

The next morning the fates were propitious. Mr. Turvey, having been offered a passage abroad and a little ready money to get drunk with when he landed, communicated to Jabez the whole history of the great gold robbery.

A couple of days later Mr. Duck saw his promising brother-in-law safe on board a vessel bound for the colonies, and he then immediately proceeded to put his plans into execution.

Having ascertained that the large rewards offered at the time had never been withdrawn, he placed himself in communication with the authorities at Scotland-yard.

The only men accused by Jabez were Seth Preene and Josh Heckett. For some reason, possibly because in the muddled and drink-sodden condition of his brain he had forgotten the other parties to the robbery, Turvey, the guard, had named only the two men who had ridden in his van and taken an active part in the robbery. On Jabez’s information warrants for the apprehension of Preene and Heckett were issued and given to one of the principal detectives to execute. His orders were to proceed with the utmost caution, as the evidence was of the weakest possible description, and to make his own investigation before making an arrest.

He certainly did act with caution, for the very first person to whom he confided the secret of his mission was his old friend, Mr. Seth Preene.

‘I suppose I’d better hook it?’ said Mr. Preene.

‘I think so,’ said the detective. ‘As soon as you’re safe away I can collar Josh. He’ll do for me.’

CHAPTER LXVI.
BESS MAKES A CONFESSION.

George, I want to tell you something.’

George and Bess were sitting upstairs in the little room which they occupied in Heckett’s house. Josh had fallen into a doze, and Bess, who had nursed him devotedly, had stolen upstairs to her husband, for her mind was troubled.

She had been round to Mrs. Jarvis that morning, and Mrs. Jarvis had started off down to the late Squire Heritage’s with a note for Gertie.

The sands of the old man’s life were running fast, and he yearned for the presence of his granddaughter—‘Gertie’s gal,’ as he called her.

Bess had seen the Jarvises once or twice, for hers was not a nature to forget such service as these simple, good-hearted people had rendered her and her husband in their hour of peril.

Mr. Jarvis had emerged from his adventure with the police with flying colours. They were unable to obtain the slightest proof that he had ever thoroughly harboured the runaway, since he had boldly declared that when the detectives had the confounded impudence to come searching for convicts at his residence he had declared they should find one, and so had donned the clothes which he had found in Mrs. Smith’s rooms.

‘Oh,’ said the Inspector, ‘then he was there?’

‘Of course he was,’ answered Mr. Jarvis; ‘the gentleman came to see his wife, but he didn’t stop. I didn’t know as he was a conwick; he didn’t come and say “Guvnor, I’m a conwick,” he dissembled, like willuns always does in the dramer. I thought he was a respectable cove come from a woyage.’

‘Then why didn’t you say he had been at your house when the officer came with a warrant, instead of deceiving him?’

‘Deceiving him!’ exclaimed Mr. Jarvis; ‘me deceive the police! Get out, guvuor! Why, I wouldn’t do it. I tell you, I put on the clos for to see if they’d fit me, ’cos I’m a-going to play a conwick in a new drama what my son wrote for the show. Clever boy he is, I can tell you; he’ll be a writer for Drury Lane afore long.’

‘Nevermind about Drury Lane,’ said the Inspector. ‘Why did you deceive the officer?’

‘I’m a cornin’ to it; you can’t have all five hacs at once, yer know. Well, I was a-tryin’ on the clos, when my missus calls up as the perlice is at the door. “This is hockard, I sez, goessin’ what they wanted; ’blest if they won’t take me for the conwick!” So I hides under the bed, not a-wantin’ for to be dragged through the streets for the public to see the part gratis, as might interfere with the receipts, ’cos if the public can see you for nothink as a conwick they ain’t likely for to pay, are they?’

It was in vain that the Inspector cross-examined the showman; the latter stuck to his talc, and produced undoubted evidence of his respectability.

‘Of course,’ said the Inspector, ‘we could charge you with being in possession of the Government clothing, you know.’

Mr. Jarvis looked down the convict’s suit.

‘These the Government’s clothes!’ he exclaimed, with a comic look of astonishment. ‘Well, I should advise the Government to change its tailor.’

Mr. Jarvis was at last allowed to return to his home, but not before Mrs. Jarvis had been sent for to bring him a suit to return in. The convict’s dress was retained at the station, and Mr. Jarvis was informed that he might go home, but he might be charged at any time.

The Inspector, who was a shrewd man, fancied that it was quite possible, if there was collusion, by watching Mr. Jarvis, the police might come upon the escaped felon.

But George never left Heckett’s house when once he got into it, and Bess was so thickly veiled, and had so altered her style of dress, that the men, who had only had an occasional glimpse of her once, quite failed to recognise her as the convict’s wife on the one or two occasions that she called at the Jarvises’.

Early on the morning on which the events to be narrated in this chapter happened, Bess had been round, and despatched Mrs. Jarvis with a note to Gertie, at Heritage Hall, bidding her accompany the messenger if she would see her old grandfather alive.

‘George, I want to tell you something.’

George looked up.

‘What is it, my darling? No bad news, I hope?’

Bess put her arms round her husband’s neck.

‘I don’t think you’ll blame me, dear, for what I did. Now that unhappy man is dead who caused us all our trouble, I think you will be glad. I warned his wife, George, of what was going to be done.’

For a moment George looked doubtfully in his wife’s eyes. Then he stooped down and kissed her tenderly.

‘Bess, my own faithful, long-suffering little wife, you might have ruined all, but you obeyed the promptings of your woman’s heart. The shadow of his fate cannot rest upon us now. We dragged no loving wife through such misery as he dragged you.’

‘I did it for the best, George.’

‘I know it, my darling. It was God who sent you on your errand of mercy: We shall but have to wait a little longer. God will lift the stain from my name, and let the whole world see my innocence in His own way. Something tells me that the days of our pilgrimage are nearly over.’

Bess took her husband’s hand.

‘Do you remember, George, how we used to arrange in our old days, before the trouble came, what we would do when we had made a fortune?’

George sighed.

‘Ah! they were happy days—happy dreams. But there may be a bright future before us yet.’

Bess knew that George, in his heart of hearts, would approve what she had done, but she dared not tell him before, lest it should seem that she too was leagued with his enemies.

But when the news of Marston’s death came, she was thankful that no act of theirs had helped him to his doom. She had seen Ruth but once, and had read her goodness in her face.

The woman’s heart of George Heritage’s wife went over in sympathy to the woman whose husband might one day be torn from her arms, and she determined at least to warn her of the peril that encompassed them.

She thanked God all her life that she had done so, and she thanked God that all his trouble and his great wrongs had not crushed out all tenderness and human sympathy from the big, noble heart of George Heritage, her husband and her idol.

CHAPTER LXVII.
GERTIE’S BIBLE.

Gertie Heckett sat by the bedside of her grandfather, holding his thin, trembling hands in hers.

It was a bright sunshiny day, and the light streamed in through the curtained window and fell upon the fair young face as it bent in gentle sympathy over the prostrate and suffering man.

Gertie had been with her grandfather all the afternoon. Much had been said. Gertie had told the old man the simple history of her later life, and how she had heard once that he had gone away never to come back any more.

The old man’s eyes never left the child’s face.

‘You’re rare and like my girl, Gertie,’ he said once—‘rare and like my poor lass! P’r’aps if I’d seen how like you was to her years ago I’d have been the better for it. I didn’t use yer well, Gertie, but it was all fur the best. You’ve been brought up like a lady, and you found good friends. It was all for the best—all for the best.’

Bess came in by-and-by to shift the old man’s pillows, and see if he wanted for anything.

‘Missus,’ said Josh, in the low voice he always spoke now, ‘missus, ask the young master to come in, will you? I’ve summat as I want to say to my gal as I wants yer both to hear.

I carn’t make no will, but there’s things as I wants Gertie to ‘ave, and maybe if you hears what they be, you’ll know it’s all right when I’m gone——’

‘Oh, grandfather, you will get well perhaps!’ said Gertie, her eyes filling with tears.

‘Nay, my lass—I’m goin’ home! Larst night I seed my gal a-sittin’ there, and I knows what that means. They say you allus sees the dead when you’re goin’ to die yourself.’

Gertie said nothing, only in her heart she wondered if her grandfather was fit to die. She longed to ask him if he had asked God to forgive him, but she dared not.

When Bess returned with George the old man bade them shut the door and lock it. His old caution had never left him.

‘That’s right, mum,’ he said; ‘now stoop down and give us the letter-box as is under the bed.’

Bess did as Josh asked her, and handed him a tin box.

He raised himself in the bed, and Bess propped him up with the pillows.

‘Give us my keys, they’re under the pillow,’ he said, hugging the box to his breast.

When he had the keys he unlocked the box, and waited a moment before he opened it.

‘Listen here, guv’nor, and you, too, missus, now, ’cos I’m agoing to make my will. I carn’t write it, so I say it. There’s jewels and things in this here box as I’ve kept by for years, ’cos they was proputty and easy to carry about. Some o’ these here walyables I should like given to a church or something—some place as’ud be likely to do good with’em. I carn’t give’em to the gal, ’cos why, ‘cos they ain’t clean. There’s that on’em as makes’em not fit for my gal’s gal to have.’

He opened the box and drew out a beautiful diamond ornament.

George started back in astonishment.

‘Why, Heckett,’ he exclaimed, ‘where did you get that from? They’re my mother’s jewels!’

‘What!’ cried Josh, his white face flushing. ‘Why o’ course they are! I forgot. These here things are what I got at the Hall.’

‘Good Heavens, man!’ said George, ‘why didn’t you tell me you had them? They’re all conclusive evidence of my innocence of that monstrous crime of which I was suspected.’

‘Don’t talk so quick,’ said Heckett, ‘don’t talk so quick, guv’nor. I’m weak, and I carn’t think in a hurry. Yes—yes—these are all yours. No church won’t have’em. I can give ‘em back to you. It’ll be a sin off my soul, won’t it?’

George had taken the box from the old burglar’s trembling hands, while Bess and Gertie looked on, astonished spectators of the scene.

‘These are the jewels,’ cried George, lifting them to the light, ‘that my poor father prized and never would part with! Often have I seen him gazing at them and whispering my mother’s name.’

Suddenly from the things in the box George drew a faded sheet of paper, and looked at it steadfastly.

‘It’s my father’s handwriting,’ he said softly, placing it to his lips. ‘Poor old dad! poor old dad!’

Gently he unfolded the writing and read it from beginning to end; then he lifted his eyes, streaming with tears, and said:

‘Thank God! thank God! he forgave me!’

George Heritage had read the codicil by which his father had revoked the will which left his property to Ruth Adrian, and had given everything once more to his beloved son.

For years it had lain concealed among the old burglar’s treasures, mixed up with the contents of the box stolen from the Hall, and thrust away together by the thief in a secure hiding place. Josh Heckett little knew the value of the bit of paper that had kept the stolen jewels company, to see the light when on his death-bed he wished to make reparation for the past.

‘Heckett!’ exclaimed George excitedly, holding the paper up; ‘there is the band of Providence in this! You have done much evil in your long life, I fear; but now, lying here near your end, God has made you the instrument of His sovereign justice. You have united the husband and wife whom you helped to separate—you have restored an honest man his good name, and a disinherited son his rightful fortune!’

‘Have I done all that?’ exclaimed Josh, sinking back on his pillows exhausted. ‘Lord, Lord, only to think on it!’

‘You have done all this, my poor fellow,’ said George, lifting the old man’s head gently and putting the pillows right—‘all this and more. You have made me the happiest man on earth!’

‘I’ve made somebody happy at last,’ sighed Josh, closing his eyes. ‘Don’t speak for a minute or two; I want to lie still and feel what doin’ good be like.’

The little group sat silent when Josh Heckett lay with closed eyes, his thoughts wandering far away into the past.

He was the first to speak.

‘Gertie!’

‘Yes, grandfather.’

‘Would you like to read my gal’s Bible to me?’

‘Oh, yes, grandfather, if you would let me!’ cried Gertie, eagerly.

‘Missus, ’said Josh, ‘give the gal her mother’s Bible. I ha’ kept it all these years, but I never know as I should want it. I kept it for my gal’s sake. It’s over yonder in the dror there.’ Bess followed the old man’s finger.

She opened the drawer and drew out an old-fashioned cheap Bible, faded and worn with age.

‘Give it to me.’

Josh took the book and looked at it reverently.

‘That’s it,’ he said; ‘she was always a-worriting of me to hear summat out of it, was my gal. “Father,” she used to say, “I wish you’d let me read yer a bit out of the Bible,” but I never would. It warn’t in my line then.’

‘Shall I read it to you now, grandfather?’ said Gertie, softly laying her hand upon the book.

‘Yes, gal, do. I seem to hear your mother’s voice a-sayin’ “Read the Bible! Read the Bible!”’

‘What shall I read you, grandfather?’

‘Arn’t there summat in it about storin’ away proputty and about thieves? Once I heard a chap at a street-corner a-lecturin’ on that. I fancy something about that’ud be best for me to hear, eh?’

Gertie knew what her grandfather meant. She opened the Bible to search for the passage, and as she did so a paper fluttered down upon the floor.

George picked it up and read it.

‘Why,’ he exclaimed, ‘it’s a marriage certificate!’

‘A what?’ shouted Heckett, rising in the bed with new-found strength—‘a what in my gal’s Bible?’

‘It is the marriage certificate of Ralph Egerton and Gertrude Heckett.’

‘God of heaven!’ cried the old burglar, clasping his hands; ‘my gal was a honest gal arter all! His wife! his wife! My gal—my gal! why didn’t I look in your Bible afore?’

In his wild excitement the old man had started up, and was clutching fiercely at the pillows; his face was crimson and his sunken eyes were starting from his head.

His hand was stretched eagerly towards Gertie, as though asking her to give him the Bible. As Gertie held it out he clutched it, pressed it to his lips, and then, with a little cry, fell heavily back upon the pillows, while the life-blood welled from his mouth. The sudden exertion had completed the long work of disease. Josh Heckett had burst a blood-vessel, and was bleeding to death.

---

Late that evening a cab rattled up to the door of Josh Heckett’s house, and Mr Duck and a strange gentleman got out.

The strange gentleman knocked at the door.

Bess opened it, and before she could ask their names the men had brushed past her into a room where they heard the sound of voices.

George and Gertie were sitting in the shadow, and something was lying quite still upon the bed.

‘Josh Heckett,’ exclaimed the strange gentleman, moving towards the bed, ‘in the Queen’s name, I arrest you!’

George, forgetting caution, had hardly time to recover from his astonishment at the entrance of strangers before the detective had proclaimed his mission.

‘You are too late!’ exclaimed George, seizing the officer’s hand as it was about to touch the bed. ‘Your prisoner has already gone to answer for all his offences.’

‘Gone!’ exclaims the officer.

‘Yes, to the Great Sessions where all men are tried—Josh Heckett is dead!’

‘It is true!’ whispered Jabez Duck; ‘he is dead!’

He had stolen softly to the bed where the dead man lay. At the sound of George s voice he turned and faced him.

‘George Smith, by all that’s wonderful!’ he exclaimed. ‘Officer, arrest this man! He is an escaped convict!’

Then, for the first time, did George remember his position. The sudden death of Heckett and the strange circumstance which had produced it had made him forget his own perilous position. That night Bess and Gertie kept watch in the house of the dead, and George lay with the iron bolts of justice shot upon him.

But his heart was light, for he knew that His hand which had lifted the veil so far would bring the whole truth to light in His own good time.

CHAPTER LXVIII.
GERTIE GAINS HER HERITAGE.

Ruth Heritage, dressed in the deepest mourning, sat in the great room of Heritage Hall, looking out upon the grounds but seeing them not. Her thoughts were far away in the past, and the form that was ever before her eyes was the form of her dead husband.

Ruth, when her first paroxysm of grief was over and she could think calmly, acknowledged that it was far better that the man whom she had loved so devotedly should be lying in the green churchyard than that he should be living a hunted outcast, perhaps imprisoned in a living tomb on which the iron hand of the law had turned the key for ever.

At the grave Justice halts—beyond it neither friends can aid nor foes pursue. With all his sins upon him, Edward Marston slept the long sleep until the Great Judge should call him.

Religion with Ruth was no superstition, it was a beautiful faith, and, accepting the grand story of salvation as a Divine revelation to man, she treasured the abiding hope that He who had promised forgiveness to the very worst would be more merciful to the guilty soul of her lost love than earthly judges would have been to his guilty body.

Her mother was but little comfort to her in her loneliness. Poor Mrs. Adrian had become more and more hard to please, and infirmity of temper grew apace with infirmity of body.

It was an intense relief to the bereaved woman when Gertie came back.

For Gertie she had always cherished a motherly affection.

Gertie was associated with all her later life, and was for ever bound up with the short history of her wedded happiness.

Gertie and she and Marston had been a happy little family group before the trouble came, and with Gertie she could talk of the past without restraint.

But Gertie brought back with her a strange story—a story which when Ruth heard she resolved at once to test to its foundation.

From Gertie Mrs. Heritage gleaned not only the fact that her little protegee was in some mysterious way heiress to a fortune, but she heard all that happened to the late squire’s son and his faithful wife.

Ruth sent a loving message to Bess at once, and bade her come to the Hall without delay. She remembered what this woman had done for her, and if, as she more than suspected, the romantic history of which Gertie only knew a few detached scraps was true, she was bound by every consideration of justice and humanity at least to make such reparation for the bitter wrong as was within her power.

It was with a strange feeling that Bess came to the Hall once more, for the events of the last few days had made a deep impression on her.

The law was already at work to prove George’s innocence, and she had no fear for that. But she had hesitated to break in upon Ruth’s sacred sorrow with the tiding that she had lost not only husband and peace of mind, but fortune and home.

Ruth and Bess sat together all the spring afternoon, and the light died down in the west, and the grey shadows crept up the long walk and fell softly on the tearful faces of the two women.

Gently had Bess broken to the widow the secret of her dead husband’s treachery, and Ruth listened, never doubting a word, for truth was written on every line of Bess’s sweet, thin face.

And while in the twilight they still sat on, all told, all known.

Bess placed her arm gently round Ruth’s neck, and drawing her towards her called her sister, and pressed the kiss of peace upon her lips. Ruth had seen her duty from the first.

Not for one moment would she dispute the just claim of the man and woman she had unknowingly and unwittingly ousted.

She wished that the Hall should be Bess’s home until all was settled, and that there should she welcome her husband as the rightful owner when the strange story had been told, and Justice had acknowledged that it had added one more to its long list of innocent victims.

Not a word was said about Gertie’s claim until after the funeral of Heckett, but on the following day Ruth’s solicitors wrote Mr. Gurth Egerton an official letter which completely spoiled that worthy gentleman’s breakfast.

He flung the letter across the table to Birnie.

‘The bombshell’s dropped, Birnie!’ he exclaimed. ‘They’ve found a certificate of Ralph’s marriage with Gertie’s mother among the old man s papers. What the deuce shall I do?’

‘That’s awkward,’ answered Birnie. ‘What are the terms of the will?’

‘Ralph’s father left everything to me if his son died without legitimate issue.’

‘Ahem! And now they pretend that he married; that this girl is his daughter, and therefore entitled to the property?’

‘Exactly.’

‘You didn’t know of this marriage, did you?’ said Birnie quietly.

‘No, my dear fellow! Of course not,’ answered Gurth colouring. ‘If I had——’

Gurth did not finish the sentence.

‘Well,’ said Birnie, after looking fixedly in the bottom of his cup for a minute, ‘I should compromise—or fight.’

‘It’s no good fighting. I’m afraid it’s too straight.’

‘Then compromise, my dear boy. Get an indemnity for the past, and an allowance for the future.’

‘But would they do it?’

‘Rather than have a long lawsuit. You can raise no end of quibbles. The law is a glorious weapon to fight Justice with, you know. If you lose the estate you haven’t got a rap; all the expenses would have to come out of the estate. Perhaps they’ll think it cheaper to compromise. Try it.’

Gurth took Birnie’s advice and found it good. The solicitors were instructed to do nothing unfriendly.

Mr. Egerton was the victim of an unfortunate circumstance. If he resigned his claim and avoided litigation he would be fairly treated.

Gurth accepted a liberal proposition, and acknowledged the genuineness of Miss Egerton’s pretensions, giving his legal assent to a transfer of the property, and accepting an indemnity for the revenue he had already had through his hands.

He managed to come out of the business with a small secured income and a by no means small nest-egg, and once more Mr. Oliver Birnie rubbed his hands and congratulated himself on the distinguished services he had rendered his friend.

He knew how, moreover, that perhaps Gurth might have some day appealed to him if the settlement had been less satisfactory, and though he owed his present position entirely to Gurth’s assistance in early days, he was by no means inclined to return, the compliment.

Men of Birnie’s stamp never return anything, unless it is an I O U in answer to a friend’s appeal for help.

Ruth’s solicitors were dealing not only with the affairs of Miss Egerton, but they also, at Ruth’s request, undertook the task of releasing George Heritage.

In the quiet lawyer’s office Ruth, deeply veiled, told the whole story, and though her heart almost broke and her face burnt with shame as slowly, and with a trembling voice, she recounted her husband’s share in it, she went on bravely to the end, never halting until she had branded herself with the shame of being a felon’s wife, and stripped herself of every penny she had in the world.

The solicitors took up the strange case with energy, and worked bravely for their client. Link by link they rejoined the long-broken chain, and carried the case even into the sacred precincts of the Home Office.

And in the end, after delays and endless trouble, the Home Secretary was good enough graciously to advise Her Majesty to grant a free pardon to a man who had done nothing—nothing except to escape from the prison where he had been cast by the merciless machinations of a gang of guilty wretches with the assistance of Mr. Seth Preene, late in the confidence and in the pay of the authorities of Scotland Yard.

CHAPTER LXIX.
AND LAST.

There is a charming little villa some distance from Heritage Hall—a pretty place, on which many a weary wanderer, tired with life’s pilgrimage, has looked with an envious eye, and thought what a peaceful haven it must be to anchor in at last.

It is the bright summer time when we pause to admire this rustic retreat. The June roses are hanging about the porch; the scent of the sweet, old-fashioned flowers fills the air, and the lattice windows are opened wide to let in the odorous breeze.

In an invalid chair, wheeled to the door, sits an old lady, peacefully dozing. The evening of her life is far spent, and the night is at hand, but loving hands are ever ready to guide her tottering footsteps to the journey’s end.

Old Mrs. Adrian—dead to the past, dead to the future—dozes her declining days away here in this peaceful cottage, still finding a tongue that can chide for fancied slights, still in her feeble frame finding the strength to oppose and to contradict, but never failing, when she hears a gentle footstep approaching, to brighten into a smile, and to mumble out a loving word to the pale, gentle lady who bends over her and kisses the wrinkled brow.

And often with the quiet lady there comes to her a tall, graceful, blue-eyed girl—a girl just budding into womanhood.

These three—the old woman, the quiet, pale-faced lady, whose face bears traces of a sorrow too deep for words, endured nobly, and the young girl standing on the threshold of womanhood and waiting till some footfall shall make her heart beat with a new strange feeling—are together near the open door this warm June morning. Lying with his head upon his paws stretched out in front of his young mistress, is an old dog, who has his meat cut very small for him, and who now and then wags his tail with a stateliness suitable to grey hairs, but whose old eyes brighten still with a fond look of love when a gentle hand pats him and the voice which is the sweetest music he ever heard calls ‘Lion.’ Together they form a picturesque group that arrests the attention of a very dusty, very hot, and very fat gentleman, who takes his pocket-handkerchief from his hat and mops a shiny bald head with it.

‘I beg pardon, ladies,’ says the man, ‘but maybe you can tell me where Squire Heritage lives?’

The young lady rises and comes to the garden gate. She is about to direct the man, when a cloud of dust comes round the corner. There is a clatter of horse’s hoofs, and a pony-chaise rattles up to the door.

‘Here is the squire,’ says the young lady.

The fat gentleman stands aside and the squire does not see him. He is a handsome, happy-looking fellow, this squire, and there is a lady with him whose cheeks glow with health and whose bright eyes are full of life.

‘Oh, George’!’ says the lady, ‘I’m sure you’ll drive over somebody some day. My dear Gertie, if you could have seen us come down the lane you’d have thought we were mad. Ah, Ruth, how’s your mamma to-day?’

The quiet lady had come down the little garden path to the carriage, and the lips of the women meet in a sisterly kiss.

‘I want you to come back to the Hall with us if you can leave your mamma for an hour,’ says the gentleman called George. ‘Bess has been up to her mad tricks again, and what do you think she’s done?’ Ruth smiles, ‘I’m sure I can’t guess.’

‘Why, she’s invited the whole of the Jarvises down, caravan and all, and, if you please, they are to perform for our special benefit an entirely new drama, written by Mr. Shakespeare Jarvis.’

‘Oh, Ruth, you will come, won’t you?’ says Bess, clapping her hands, for Bess Heritage it is. ‘I want only our old friends. You and Gertie must come—do!’

Ruth laughs and nods her head.

‘That’s right; and now, Ruth, I’ll come in and have a quiet chat with you, while George talks nonsense to Gertie.’

Gertie laughed and shook her head, but she stayed by the pony-carriage, for she knew that the two women wanted to talk about the past and about her, and Gertie didn’t care to hear her own praises sounded.

George was patting his pony and telling Gertie about a new pair he had bought for Ruth to drive herself, when the stout gentleman approached nervously, and, giving a little cough, attracted the squire’s attention.

‘I beg pardon, Squire Heritage,’ he said.

George turned in a moment. He had reason to remember the voice.

‘Why, Duck,’ he exclaimed, ‘what the dickens are you doing here?’

‘Ahem—Squire; to tell you the truth I’m come to see you.’

‘See me!’

‘Yes. I’m afraid our connection wasn’t very pleasant, but—ahem—let bygones be bygones—and I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind—ahem—taking my card, and if you want anything done in my line——’

George took the proffered card.

It announced that Mr. Jabez Duck had embarked in business on his own account as a private inquiry agent.

George stared at the card, wondering which to do—to admire the man’s cool impudence or to kick him.

‘You see, sir,’ said Mr. Duck, giving his shiny head another mop, ‘things are altered with me now. When I had the misfortune to have to do business with you I had an encumbrance, sir, and I couldn’t afford to go about as an inquiry agent on his own account ought to. Mrs. Duck wouldn’t hear of it. But now, sir, Mrs. Duck is no more, and I’m going to try business on my own hook altogether.’

‘Oh, Mrs. Duck’s dead, is she?’ said George, for the sake of saying something.

‘Yes, sir; she is. She never recovered the shock of Georgina, my sister, getting her front floor away through calumny, and she went over and stood in the cold a-shouting down the area at her, and got bronchitis, and is now an angel.’

‘Indeed,’ said George; ‘I’m very glad—or rather, I mean, I’m very sorry. If I want any private inquiries made I’ll think of you.’

‘Thank you, squire. I thought I’d come to you for the sake of old acquaintance. We always made you and the missus as comfortable as we could when you was lodging with us. Thank you, sir; you won’t forget if you should, will you? Good day, sir!’

Mr. Jabez bowed to George, took off his hat to Gertie, gave his head another mop, and waddled slowly out of sight.

Inside the house Bess and Ruth sat together talking. They had grown to look upon one another as sisters, for the bonds which had united them in a dark hour of peril to both had grown firmer now the tempest was over and the light had come again.

And, talking, they spoke of Gertie.

‘God’s ways have been mysterious,’ said Ruth. ‘How little did I think when I rescued her from that den of wickedness in Little Queer Street and let my home be hers, that one day she would repay me a hundredfold, and that when I became penniless and without a friend the child I reared would take me to her arms and make me the chosen inmate of her home, the guardian of her wealth, and that through her noble generosity my mother’s declining years would be cheered and all care for her future and for mine be spared to me!’

---

As George drove Bess back to the Hall the young squire told his wife of Duck’s strange visit and request.

‘It gave me quite a shock, Bess,’ he said: ‘it brought back the old story so vividly to my mind.’

It was a quiet shady lane, and there was no one looking, so Bess put her arms round George’s neck and gave him a kiss so suddenly that he pulled the reins and nearly jerked the pony up on his hind legs.

‘Don’t talk about the old days, George, darling,’ she said; ‘that’s all done with for ever. The dream we dreamt in Mr. Duck’s parlour has come true. We are rich, and happy, and contented, and what more do you want?’

‘Another kiss,’ answered George.

And he had it.

THE END