CHAPTER XXIII. ONE PART OF THE TRUTH

After his interview with Alan, Captain Lestrange had come to the conclusion that it would be the best and wisest course to retreat before the enemy. Alan knew much, Brill knew more, and the two together might prove too much for him. Moreover, since his design of passing as Sophy's father had been rendered useless, it was not necessary that he should remain in Heathton. Therefore, he paid his account at the inn with money borrowed from Cicero, and departed in hot haste before that gentleman was afoot. It was not until he got to the Junction that he began to wonder if he was acting judiciously. It struck him that he should have made at least one attempt to get money out of Sophy.

For some time he pondered over this question, and finally decided to leave his baggage in the Junction cloak-room and steal back to Heathton under cover of darkness. True, his accomplice Barkham was waiting for him in London, but he would not get much of a welcome from that gentleman unless he brought money with him. Moreover, after Joe's intimation that it was Barkham who had warned Beauchamp of the plot to hunt him down, Lestrange had had no confidence in him. But that Barkham knew enough to be very dangerous, he would have left him out of his calculations altogether. He decided at last that he must get money out of Sophy, bribe Barkham to return to Jamaica, and then deal alone and unaided with the lucrative business of extracting further blackmail. Having made up his mind to this course of action, he loitered about at the Junction until he could with safety return to Heathton.

It was during this tune that he had a surprise. While lurking in the waiting-room, he saw Blair arrive by a local train and catch the London express. What could he be doing? Was he hunting him down? The very idea terrified him, and he began to congratulate himself on having remained at the Junction. Had he known that Blair was now on his way to see Barkham, he would have had still greater cause for alarm. Matters were indeed coming to a crisis, but Lestrange did not guess that the crisis was so near at hand.

When he had seen the lights of the London express disappear, he took his seat in a local train, which was timed to leave shortly after eight o'clock. On arriving at Heathton, he left the station hurriedly, and stole through deserted by-ways to the Moat House. Here he asked for Miss Marlow, and sent in his card, on which he had scribbled, "News of your father." The lie, which was not all a lie, gained him the interview he sought; but before seeing him, Sophy sent off the note to Alan. Then she induced Miss Vicky to retire, and received her visitor alone in the drawing-room.

The Captain entered the room with a somewhat cringing air. His nerve was gone, and with it a goodly portion of his courage. Miss Marlow, on the contrary, was quite mistress of herself and of the situation. She had heard from Joe Brill, amongst other things, that this man was not her father, and she now felt no fear of him. He was anxious and ill at ease, like a culprit before a judge.

"Good evening, Captain Lestrange," said Sophy, sitting very erect in her chair. "You wish to see me, I believe. Why have you come?"

"To make reparation, Miss Marlow."

"Oh," she said ironically, "then I am not your daughter?"

"I expect you have heard as much from Joe Brill," replied Lestrange, looking at her gloomily. "No, you are not my daughter, but you are my cousin, Marie Lestrange, although you choose to keep your name of Sophia Marlow."

"I keep the name of the man who has been a father to me."

"In that case, you should call yourself Beauchamp," he retorted. "May I sit down? Thank you. Well, I suppose you are wondering why I have come to see you?"

She glanced at the card.

"To give me news of my father, I presume," she said. "Do you mean my real father?"

"No, I mean the false one. Your real father died long ago. He was murdered by Beauchamp."

"He was not!" cried Sophy vehemently, and started from her seat. "I have heard the story from Joe, and I know now why you came here. But nothing will induce me to believe that he killed my father. My mother fled to him from the cruelty of her husband, and you were at the bottom of all the trouble."

"Yes," he cried fiercely, "I was! I loved your mother dearly. She gave me up for Achille, and I swore I would be revenged. I sowed dissension between them. It was through me that Zelia fled with Beauchamp. Do you think I am sorry for what happened? I am not. I hated Achille; but he is dead. I hate Beauchamp, for your mother loved him----"

"And he also is dead," interrupted Sophy; "you cannot harm him."

"Are you so sure he is dead?" sneered Lestrange.

"I saw his dead body!" cried the girl, with emotion.

"You saw him in a state of insensibility, brought about by Warrender's devilish drugs!" said the Captain sharply. "I don't believe Beauchamp is dead. If he had been, why should his body have been carried off?"

"You declared that Mr. Thorold did that, and----"

"I do not say so now. Thorold had nothing to do with it; but I am quite sure that Warrender had. In order to escape me, Beauchamp allowed himself to be drugged by Warrender, and that was why Warrender assisted at the removal of the supposed dead body. I feel certain that Beauchamp is alive."

"Alive! Oh! I hope so, I hope so! My dear father!" cried Sophy. "Only prove that he is alive, Captain Lestrange, and I will forgive you all!"

"You forget that I am his enemy," was the fierce reply. "Were I able to prove that he is alive, I should at once have him arrested for the murder of your father--my cousin."

"It is not true! it is not true!"

"It is, and you know it. Beauchamp must have had some very good and strong reason for allowing himself to be buried alive so as to escape me. But for your sake and for my own I will leave Beauchamp, should he be indeed alive, to the punishment of his conscience."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I want money. You are rich, and you can pay me. Give me a thousand pounds, and I will go away and never trouble you again."

"I refuse!" She walked up and down the room in a state of great agitation. "If you were certain that Mr. Beauchamp was alive--if you were certain he had committed that crime, you would not let him escape so easily."

"I would! I would! I am tired of the whole business."

"No, no," insisted the girl; "I don't believe you. If I gave you money, I should only be supplying you with the means to cause further trouble. If my dear father--for I shall still call him so--is alive, I will leave the matter in his hands."

"And hang him."

"And save him," retorted the girl firmly. "You can go, Captain Lestrange. I shall not give you one penny!"

Lestrange made a bound and caught her wrist.

"Take care!" he cried, shaking with rage; "I am desperate--I will stick at nothing. If you do not give the money I want, I shall go to the police!"

"Go! go! I defy you!"

"Little devil!" muttered Lestrange, and he gave her arm a sharp twist.

She screamed for help, and as though in answer to her summons, Alan appeared at the door. With an exclamation of rage he sprang forward, seized Lestrange, and flung him on the floor.

"You hound!" he cried, panting. "You dog!"

"Alan! Alan! Thank Heaven you are here! Let me sit down, Alan; I--I feel faint."

While Alan was assisting the girl to a chair, Lestrange rose slowly from the ground. The sudden and opportune arrival of the young Squire disconcerted him greatly, and he began to think it was time to retire. If Sophy refused him money when alone, she would most certainly not yield to his demand now that her lover was beside her. So with deadly hatred in his heart, he stole towards the door, which was still open. On the threshold he recoiled with a shrill cry of fear. Before him stood Herbert Beauchamp, alias Richard Marlow.

"You--you here, after all?"

Beauchamp, shutting and locking the door after him, strode into the room.

"Yes, I live to punish you, Jean Lestrange. Hold him, Alan, while I speak to Sophy."

The girl, with a pale face and staring eyes, was looking at the man who had come back from the grave. He approached and took her hands.

"My poor child!" he said in caressing tones, "do not look so alarmed! I am flesh and blood."

"You are alive, father?" gasped Sophy, amazed and somewhat terrified.

"Yes." He kissed her. "I feigned death to escape from this man. Come, Sophy, have you no welcome for me? It is true that I am not your father; but--after all----"

"You are as dear to me as ever!" she cried, putting her arms round his neck. "You are my true father--my real father! I shall never think of you as anything else. Oh, thank God--thank God!" And she wept and kissed him by turns.

"Amen!" said Beauchamp in a solemn tone. "But we have much to do before things are put straight. There is the cause of all my trouble, and I must deal with him." He rose and crossed to where Lestrange, white and shaking, was in the grip of Thorold. "What have you to say for yourself, Lestrange?"

The man made a violent effort to recover his self-control, and partially succeeded.

"I have to say to you what I shall shortly say to the world: You are a murderer!"

"That is a lie!"

"It is no lie. You murdered that girl's father?"

"That is a lie!" repeated Beauchamp sternly. "Do you think I am a Judas, to kiss that innocent girl if I knew myself to be her father's murderer? I knocked your cousin Achille senseless, and well he deserved it; but it was not I who stabbed him to the heart. It was you, Jean Lestrange!"

"I--I----" gasped the wretch, his lips white, his limbs shaking under him. "You dare--to--to--accuse--me--of----"

"I do not accuse you," said Beauchamp solemnly. "Out of the mouth of the dead you are condemned. Here is the confession of Warrender, and in it he tells the truth. You are the murderer of Achille!"

Sophy uttered a cry of horror, and throwing herself back on the couch, hid her face from the guilty wretch. He strove to speak, but no words came, and he continued to look silently on the ground. But for the support of Thorold he would have fallen.

"Warrender," continued Mr. Beauchamp, "himself almost as great a villain as you, knew the truth these twenty years. But he kept silence in order to terrorize me, to extort money from me. It was he who proposed that I should escape you by feigning death, knowing, as he did, that I was innocent. Well, he has been punished!"

"I did not kill him, at all events!" cried Lestrange savagely.

"I know you did not; you were not in England at the time. But you killed Achille. Yes, you left the room where Zelia lay dead, you found Achille senseless on the veranda, and you stabbed him to the heart. Warrender saw you commit the crime. It is all set out here, and signed by Warrender, in the presence of two witnesses. Can you deny it?"

Lestrange moistened his dry lips, looked at Sophy, at Beauchamp, then suddenly shook off Alan's hold.

"No, I don't deny it," he said in a loud, harsh voice. "You have been one too many for me. I am so poor as to be almost starving, so I don't care what becomes of me. Hang me if you like. I hate you, Beauchamp--I have always hated you, the more so when I found how much Zelia cared for you. And I loved her, though that was not the reason I killed her husband; for she was dead then, and could never be mine. But I killed him so that blame might rest on you. And I wanted the custody of the child, because I should have been able to handle the money. I found Achille senseless where you had knocked him down. I did not intend to do it; but I had a knife--and the devil put it into my head to stab him. Then you fled, and the murder was laid at your door."

"And had you not done me harm enough, wretched man, without hunting me down?" said Beauchamp sternly.

"I wanted money," he cried recklessly. "I saw your portrait in the paper, and I arranged with Barkham, who was as hard-up as I, that we should come to England and get some of your money. He played the traitor, and wrote you that letter--why, I don't know, as he stood to make as much as I did. But for that letter I should have found you alive, and I should have forced you to pay me. As it turned out, you escaped me."

"And will you escape me, do you think?" asked Beauchamp with emphasis.

"I don't know--I don't care. Call in the police and have me arrested if you like. I have played a bold game, and lost--do your worst!"

He folded his arms, and stared defiantly at the man whose life he had ruined.

Beauchamp looked irresolutely at him, then he turned to Sophy, who, pale and quiet, was clinging to her lover's arm.

"The daughter of the man whose life you took shall be your judge," said the millionaire. "Sophy, is he to go free, or shall the law take its course?"

"Let him go--let him go," murmured the girl. "His death shall not be upon my soul. Let him go and repent."

"I agree with Sophy," said Alan Thorold. "Let him go."

"And repent," finished Mr. Beauchamp. "Go, Jean Lestrange, and seek from an offended God the mercy you denied to me."

Lestrange pulled himself together, and put on his hat with a would-be jaunty air. He tried to speak, but the words would not come, and he slunk out of the room like a beaten hound.

And that was the last they ever saw of Jean Lestrange.