“He is, I have never doubted it since the night you saw him in Bean lane.  The action you described, of his pushing back his hair, his white hands, his sparkling diamond ring, could only apply in my mind to one person—­Francis Levison.  On Thursday I drove by the Raven, when he was speechifying to the people, and I noticed the selfsame action.  In the impulse of the moment I wrote off for you, that you might come and set the doubt at rest.  I need not have done it, it seems, for when Mr. Carlyle returned home that evening, and I acquainted him with what I had done, he told me that Thorn and Francis Levison are one and the same.  Otway Bethel recognized him that same afternoon, and so did Ebenezer James.”

“They’d both know him,” eagerly cried Richard.  “James I am positive would, for he was skulking down to Hallijohn’s often then, and saw Thorn a dozen times.  Otway Bethel must have seen him also, though he protested he had not.  Barbara!”

The name was uttered in affright, and Richard plunged amidst the trees, for somebody was in sight—­a tall, dark form advancing from the end of the walk.  Barbara smiled.  It was only Mr. Carlyle, and Richard emerged again.

“Fears still, Richard,” Mr. Carlyle exclaimed, as he shook Richard cordially by the hand.  “So you have changed your travelling toggery.”

“I couldn’t venture here again in the old suit; it had been seen, you said,” returned Richard.  “I bought this rig-out yesterday, second-hand.  Two pounds for the lot—­I think they shaved me.”

“Ringlets and all?” laughed Mr. Carlyle.

“It’s the old hair oiled and curled,” cried Dick.  “The barber charged a shilling for doing it, and cut my hair into the bargain.  I told him not to spare grease, for I liked the curls to shine—­sailors always do.  Mr. Carlyle, Barbara says that Levison and that brute Thorn—­the one’s as much of a brute as the other, though—­have turned out to be the same.”

“They have, Richard, as it appears.  Nevertheless, it may be as well for you to take a private view of Levison before anything is done—­as you once did by the other Thorn.  It would not do to make a stir, and then discover that there was a mistake—­that he was not Thorn.”

“When can I see him?” asked Richard, eagerly.

“It must be contrived somehow.  Were you to hang about the doors of the Raven—­this evening, even—­you’d be sure to get the opportunity, for he is always passing in and out.  No one will know you, or think of you, either:  their heads are turned with the election.”

“I shall look odd to people’s eyes.  You don’t get many sailors in West Lynne.”

“Not odd at all.  We have a Russian bear here at present, and you’ll be nobody beside him.”

“A Russian bear!” repeated Richard, while Barbara laughed.

“Mr. Otway Bethel has returned in what is popularly supposed to be a bear’s hide; hence the new name he is greeted with.  Will it turn out, Richard that he had anything to do with the murder?”