mounting in all to something over a
hundred thousand pounds, to her old friend Leonard Outram and the heirs
of his body, with reversion to her brother. This will has not been
disputed; therefore, if you are Leonard Outram, I may congratulate
you upon being once more the owner of your ancestral estate and a
considerable fortune in cash."

For a while Leonard was too agitated to speak.

"I will prove to you," he said at last, "that I am this person, that is,
I will prove it _prima facie_; afterwards you can satisfy yourself of
the truth of my statements by the usual methods." And he proceeded to
adduce a variety of evidence as to his identity which need not be set
out here. The lawyer listened in silence, taking a note from time to
time.

"I think," he said when Leonard had finished, "that, subject to those
inquiries of which you yourself have pointed out the necessity in so
grave a matter, I may accept it as proved that you are none other than
Mr. Leonard Outram, or rather," he added, correcting himself, "if, as I
understand, your elder brother Thomas is dead, than Sir Leonard Outram.
Indeed you have so entirely convinced me that this is the case, that I
have no hesitation in placing in your hands a letter addressed to you
by the late Lady Cohen, and deposited with me together with the executed
will; though, when you have read it, I shall request you to leave that
letter with me for the present.

"By the way, it may interest you to learn," Mr. Turner added, as he went
to a safe built into the wall and unlocked its iron door, "that we have
been hunting for you for a year or more. We even sent a man to South
Africa, and he tracked you to a spot in some mountains somewhere north
of Delagoa Bay, where it was reported that you, with your brother Thomas
and two friends, were digging for gold. He reached the spot on the night
of the ninth of May last year."

"The very day that I left it," broke in Leonard.

"And found the site of your camp and three graves. At first our
representative thought that you were all dead, but afterwards he fell
in with a native who appears to have deserted from your service, and who
told him that one of the brothers was dying when he left the camp, but
one was still in good health, though he did not know where he had gone."

"My brother Thomas died on the first of May--this day year," said
Leonard.

"After that all trace of you was lost, but I still kept on advertising,
for missing people h