ying? 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,