"Come, Alan," said Beauchamp after a pause, "you need not be tongue-tied with astonishment. I sent Blair on to tell you all that had happened, so you must have known that I was alive."

"Yes, yes--but your disguise," stammered the young man. "I expected to see Brown. You are not Brown, never could have been; for when he was here, I have seen you and him at the same time."

"That's all right, my boy. I was not Brown, as you say, and who Brown was I know no more than you do. But I am Brown now," with emphasis, "and Brown I shall remain until I can show myself with safety as Richard Marlow. Not that I intended to stick to that name. No; if Blair is right, and that scoundrel Warrender has left papers to prove my innocence, I shall take my own name. But this disguise! It is a plot between me and Blair. It was necessary that I should be on the spot, so we thought this was as good a mask as any. Oh, depend upon it, Alan, I am perfectly safe here from Jean Lestrange!"

As he spoke, Beauchamp was putting on his wig and beard. And when this was done to his satisfaction, he seated himself on a chair opposite to Alan, looking the very image of the Quiet Gentleman. Thorold did not wonder that Mrs. Marry had been deceived--the completeness of the disguise would have deceived a cleverer woman.

"Still," said he doubtfully, "if the real Brown should reappear----"

"We will have him arrested for the murder of Warrender," said Beauchamp quietly. "Yes, I am convinced he is guilty, else why did he steal the key of the vault? Blair told me about that. He must surely be some tool of Jean Lestrange's. No, not the man himself--I am aware of that. Blair saw the passenger-list."

"Are you certain that the Quiet Gentleman killed Warrender?"

"No, because I did not see the blow struck. I was insensible at the time--but it is a long story, and to make things perfectly clear, I must begin at the beginning. One moment, Alan." Beauchamp crossed to the door and turned the key. "I don't want Mrs. Marry to come in."

"She will hear your voice, and believing you to be dumb----"

"I'll speak low. Come nearer to this chair. First tell me how Sophy is."

"Very well, but much cast down. She thinks you are dead, and that your body has been stolen. Oh, Beauchamp!" cried Alan passionately, "why did you not trust Sophy and me? You would have spared us both many an unhappy hour."

"I wish now that I had told you, but I acted for the best. I had little time for thought. I expected daily that Lestrange would appear. If I had only considered the matter rather more--but there, it's done and we must make the best of it. Sophy's tears will be turned to smiles shortly--if, indeed, she still loves me, knowing that I am not her father," and the old man sighed.

"You need have no fear on that score," said Alan, with a faint smile. He was getting over the first shock of surprise. "Sophy would have nothing to do with Jean Lestrange, although she half believed his story. She always insists that you are her true father. She will welcome you back with the greatest joy."

"She must welcome me secretly."

"Secretly--why? Should your innocence be established, you would surely reappear as Richard Marlow?"

"What! And have the whole story in the papers? No, Alan, I shall spend the rest of my life under my true name of Beauchamp, and live on the two thousand a year I left myself in my will. You and Sophy can marry and take the rest of the money. I shall travel, and take Joe with me."

"Well, perhaps it is the best thing to do," said Thorold. "But tell me, how was it that the manager of the Occidental Bank reported you dead?"

"Joe wrote to him by my order to say so. When Joe came to me at Brighton and told me how the death of Warrender had complicated matters, I was afraid lest I should be traced, and perhaps accused of a second murder. So I thought it best to put it about that I was dead, and end all pursuit."

"If you had only trusted me, sir, all this trouble would have been avoided. I merited your confidence, I think."

"I know--I know. Indeed, on that day when I spoke to you of the probability that my body would not be allowed to rest in its grave, I had half a mind to tell you. But somehow the moment passed. Even then I had designed my plot of feigning death. It was the only way I saw of escaping Lestrange."

"Tell me the story from the beginning," said Alan. "I know only scraps."

"The beginning was in Jamaica, Alan," said Beauchamp sadly. "All this trouble arose out of the love I had for Sophy's mother. Poor Zelia! if only she had married me, I would have made her a good husband. As it was, she chose Achille Lestrange, a roué and a gambler, a spendthrift and a scoundrel. I could never tell Sophy what a bad man her father was. He treated poor Zelia abominably."

"But was that altogether his fault, Beauchamp? Joe hinted that Jean Lestrange caused much of the trouble."

"So he did, the scoundrel! Jean was, if anything, worse than his cousin, though there was not much to choose between them. But Jean was madly in love with Zelia--worshiped her with all the fierce passion of a Creole. When he lost her he vowed he would be revenged--he sowed dissension between them on my account."

"He hinted that you were in love with her, I suppose?"

"Yes, and he was right!" cried Beauchamp with emphasis. "I was in love with Zelia, and pitied her from the bottom of my heart. Well, a year after Sophy was born things came to a crisis. I was at Kingston, and my yacht in the harbor there. I saw a good deal of Zelia, and one night she came on board with her child, and asked me to take her away. Lestrange had struck her, the beast! and she had refused to live with him any longer. At first I hesitated, but she was in such a state of agony that I consented to take her away from her wretched life. I had to go first to Falmouth to fetch some things which I did not wish to leave--I had sold my plantation some time before, having made up my mind to leave Jamaica. So we sa............