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.