"More, I fear, than can be well said in one conversation," answered Beauchamp; "but I had better begin and tell a part, premising, that it is under the seal of confession, and therefore----"
"Shall be as much your own secret, as if it had not been given to me," said Doctor Miles; "go on."
"Well, then, for one part of the story," said Beauchamp, with a smile at his old companion's abruptness; "in the first place, my dear doctor, I am, in some sort, an impostor; and our mutual friend, Stanhope, has aided the cheat."
Doctor Miles turned round sharply, and looked in his face for a moment; then nodded his head, as he saw there was no appearance of shame in the expression, and gazed straightforward again, without saying a word.
"To make the matter short, my good friend," continued his companion, "my name is not Beauchamp at all, nor any thing the least like it."
"Nom de guerre," said Doctor Miles; "pray, what may the war be about?"
"Of that hereafter," said Beauchamp--"for I shall still continue to call him by the name which he repudiated. You have seen, that I have been somewhat anxious to purchase this Moreton Hall property, and am still anxious to do so, though I have received a little bit of news on that subject to-day, which may make me very cautious about the examination of titles, &c. This intelligence is, that the ostensible proprietor is not the real one; your acquaintance, Mr. Wharton, having become virtually possessed of the property, perhaps, by not the fairest means."
"Humph!" said Doctor Miles; but he added nothing further, and Beauchamp went on.
"Poor Mr. St. Leger Moreton," he said, "was by no means a man of business, an easy, kind-hearted, somewhat too sensitive person."
"I know, I know," answered Doctor Miles, "I was well acquainted with him; and if ever man died of a broken heart, which is by no means so unusual an occurrence as people suppose, he did so."