He stopped short in astonishment. Mrs. Bezel was looking at Captain Larcher with a bewildered air, and he gazed at her face with an expression of amazement. She shrank back as he crossed the room with rapidity, and bent over her. "Mona Bantry!" he cried, "is it possible that you still live?" CHAPTER XLI. AN EXPLANATION. ON hearing his father's exclamation Claude turned round with a look of supreme astonishment. He could not understand the meaning of that sudden exclamation. "Father, you do not understand. This is your wife--my mother." "Is it, indeed?" sneered Captain Larcher, who had recovered from his momentary emotion. "Nothing of the sort, sir. This woman is Mona Bantry, who was my wife's maid." "Are you sure?" cried Tait, who was beginning to be bewildered by these successive revelations. "Sure, sir! as sure as I am of my own innocence. As sure as I am George Larcher, this is the sister of Denis Bantry, who----" "Denis!" The interruption came from Mrs. Bezel. She had sat dumfounded at the unexpected appearance of the man whom she had thought dead, and she had said nothing while assertion and denial were going on, but the mention of her brother's name stirred her dormant faculties, and she sat up looking wildly around. "Denis!" she cried, in a terrified tone. "Is Denis here?" "Denis is down at Thorston," said Captain Larcher gruffly, "as you no doubt knew well enough." "I swear I did not. Francis told me Denis was in America." "Francis?" exclaimed Claude, forgetting to whom the name belonged. "Francis Hilliston." "Ah!" said Captain Larcher, with a disdainful look round. "I might have guessed as much. Off with the dead love, on with the living. You have amended the proverb." "I did not know Mark was dead, sir," exclaimed Mrs. Bezel passionately. "Francis said that he had gone to America with Denis. I thought he had done so to escape the consequences of his crime, but----" "Of his crime!" cried Claude. "He was the victim, poor soul, not the murderer. It was Jeringham who was killed, not my father." "Your father?" said Mrs. Bezel, looking steadily at Captain Larcher. "Yes; it is my old master. So you are alive and he is dead. Why did you kill him, sir?" "I did not kill him," replied the captain quietly, "and as a counter question, may I ask why you passed yourself off to Claude as my wife?" Mrs. Bezel burst into a wild laugh, and clapped her hands together. Then she covered her face and commenced to weep, but in a few moments the fit of hysteria passed away, and she became cool and composed. Thrown off her balance for the time being, she had now gathered her wits together, and was ready to fight. Her folly and impulse had brought about this catastrophe, and it was her duty to set it right again--if she could. But the upshot of the matter was extremely doubtful.