‘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.