s thudded by; the mustiness enwrapped
them. Outside the window a dead piece of branch fell crackling to the
ground. Gradually he grew to be unaware of her presence, so sharp and
rapid were the currents which successively swept him; and her petty
curiosity, all her poor need for speculation, was lost in the depth of
the spell cast over him now. She dared not look at him, she dared not
take her eyes off the object before them.

It was crudely painted. It was the portrait of a young man dressed a
hundred or more years ago. He seemed to be walking forward out of the
picture. In many places the pigment was so nearly gone that the brown
fuzz of canvas showed through. The colors clung as delicate as cobwebs
to the stern face and erect stalwart figure.

"Who is it?" Hastings articulated, scarce audibly. But though he had
to ask, if only to save himself from going mad, his words were no more
than frail signals of his distress, for he knew that he alone knew the
answer. Electrically, crashingly, it had been borne in upon him at
almost the first instant of his beholding them where it was that he had
seen before those tightly compressed lips, with the mole still visible
near the corner; he knew those calm, cruel eyes, still averted from his
own; in a flash he had identified the purple satin waistcoat.

"You, Jack,"--she faced him determinedly--"you looked like _him_; you
were like him, absolutely, in every detail, when you came into the
dining-room!"

"When I came--" he repeated at a loss.

"Yes. It wasn't here, in this room, that you fainted. You went outside,
down the stairs. Elizabeth saw you. You pushed open the dining-room
door. Mother, father, I--we all saw you come in, wearing clothes like
_these_," she pointed.

"Yes, yes, yes. I remember; I did put them on."

"But you didn't, you couldn't have! O Jack, don't you understand me? You
weren't _really_ wearing them!"

All at once he felt something crunch beneath his feet, and he looked
down, then back up at the portrait. The large square of glass which
apparently once covered it had been shattered; there were a few
triangles still sticking in the edge of the frame; the rest was in
smaller bits on the floor. Instinctively he brought his right hand
to a level with his face, and saw the scar upon it.

"It's a mystery, Jack dear. Can't you see it is? And it is so much more
interesting never to explain it," she essayed fearfully, feigning a
laugh of regained naturalness.