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.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
THE OTHER PART OF THE TRUTH
Shortly afterwards Mr. Beauchamp returned to his lodgings as the Quiet Gentleman. Having been informed by Alan, on his way to the Moat House, that Lestrange was there with Sophy, he had taken off his false wig and beard to confound him; but now, in spite of the girl's protestations, he put them on again.