A low, chuckling laugh, close at my elbow, caused me to turn quickly towards the door. Just within the threshold stood Mr Renshawe, looking like a white stone-image rather than a living man, but for the fierce sparkling of his strangely gleaming eyes, and the mocking, triumphant curl of his lips. 'You, too, have at last observed it, then?' he muttered, faintly echoing the under-tone in which I spoke: 'I have known the truth for many weeks.' The manner, the expression, not the words, quite startled me. At the same moment, a cry of women rang through the room, and I immediately seized Mr Renshawe by the arm, and drew him forcibly away, for there was that in his countenance which should not meet the eyes of a dying man.
'What were you saying? What truth have you known for weeks?' I asked, as soon as we had reached his sitting-room.
Before he could answer, another wailing sound ascended from the sick-room. Lightning leaped from Renshawe's lustrous, dilated eyes, and the exulting laugh again, but louder, burst from his lips: 'Ha! ha!' he fiercely exclaimed. 'I know that cry! It is Death's!—Death's! Thrice-blessed Death, whom I have so often ignorantly cursed! But that,' he added quickly, and peering sharply in my face, 'was when, as you know, people said'—and he ground his teeth with rage—'people said I was crazed—mad!'
'What can you mean by this wild talk, my friend?' I replied in as unconcerned and quieting a tone as I could immediately assume. 'Come, sit down: I was asking the meaning of your strange words below, just now.'
'The meaning of my words? You know as well as I do. Look there!'
'At the painting? Well?'
'You have seen the original,' he went on with the same excited tone and gestures. 'It crossed me like a flash of lightning. Still, it is strange she does not know me. It is sure she does not! But I am changed, no doubt—sadly changed!' he added, dejectedly, as he looked in a mirror.
'Can you mean that I have seen Laura Hargreaves here?' I stammered, thoroughly bewildered. 'She who was drowned ten or eleven years ago?'
'To be sure—to be sure! It was so believed, I admit, by everybody—by myself, and the belief drove me mad! And yet, I now remember, when at times I was calm—when the pale face, blind staring eyes, and dripping hair, ceased for awhile to pursue and haunt me, the low, sweet voice and gentle face came back, and I knew she lived, though all denied it. But look, it is her very image!' he added fiercely, his glaring eyes flashing from the portrait to my face alternately.
'Whose image?'
'Whose image!—Why, Mrs Irwin's, to be sure. You yourself admitted it just now.' I was so confounded, that for several minutes I remained stupidly and silently staring at the man. At length I said: 'Well, there is a likeness, though not so great as I imagined'–
'It is false!' he broke in furiously. 'It is her very self.'
'We'll talk of that to-morrow. You are ill, overexcited, and must go to bed. I hear Dr Garland's voice below: he shall come to you.'
'No—no—no!' he almost screamed. 'Send me no doctors; I hate doctors! But I'll go to bed—since—since you wish it; but no doctors! Not for the world!' As he spoke, he shrank coweringly backwards, out of the room; his wavering, unquiet eyes fixed upon mine as long as we remained within view of each other: a moment afterwards, I heard him dart into his chamber, and bolt and double-lock the door.
It was plain that lunacy, but partially subdued, had resumed its former mastery over the unfortunate gentleman. But what an extraordinary delusion! I took a candle, and examined the picture with renewed curiosity. It certainly bore a strong resemblance to Mrs Irwin: the brown, curling hair, the pensive eyes, the pale fairness of complexion, were the same; but it was scarcely more girlish, more youthful, than the young matron was now, and the original, had she lived, would have been by this time approaching to thirty years of age! I went softly down stairs and found, as I feared, that George Irwin was gone. My wife came weeping out of the death-chamber, accompanied by Dr Garland, to whom I forthwith related what had just taken place. He listened with attention and interest; and after some sage observations upon the strange fancies which now and then take possession of the minds of monomaniacs, agreed to see Mr Renshawe at ten the next morning. I was not required upon duty till eleven; and if it were in the physician's opinion desirable, I was to write at once to the patient's uncle, Mr Oxley.