‘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.