‘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.