"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 sailed, reached Falmouth in safety, and I went to my estate, leaving Joe Brill on board." "Ah! that was why Joe could not say who killed Achille?"