13. XIII.
THE PORTRAIT.
Replying to this speech of the good
lady by an affectionate glance, Innis
rose, left the chamber, and went toward
the staircase leading to the lower
floor.
As he did so, he perceived that the
door of a small apartment, the private
dressing-room of Colonel Brand, which
few persons ever entered, was half open.
Glancing idly through the opening, he
found his attention suddenly arrested by
a portrait on the opposite wall.
This portrait was the most perfect,
the most astonishing likeness of the Lord
Ruthven of Williamsburg: the pale face,
with its black hair and eyes, seemed
starting from the canvas, and about to
speak to him.
Innis advanced a step, and looked
long and intently at the picture.
“The very face!” he said.
And, returning to Lady Brand's chamber,
he said:
“Aunt, whose portrait hangs in the
dressing-room?”
“That with the white face and black
locks, Edmund?”
“Yes, aunt.”
“'Tis the picture of Lord Ruthven,
of Scotland, a former friend of Colonel
Brand's.”
“Strange that I never before saw it.”
“And yet the explanation is simple,
my son. The portrait originally hung in
the hall down-stairs, but the face gave
me a chill.”
“A chill?”
“It seemed to haunt me, with its
deep, dark, melancholy eyes—its ghostly
stare. So I begged Colonel Brand to remove
it; he complied with my request,
and it hangs now, you see, in his private
apartment.”
Innis nodded.
“It has had a strange effect upon me
too, aunt. The resemblance is striking
to the Lord Ruthven I met with in Williamsburg.”
“Ah, indeed?”
“Yes aunt—the same haunting expression
in the eyes of the portrait is
reproduced in the eyes of the son.”
“The son?”
“Doubtless, my Williamsburg acquaintance
is a son of the elder lord.”
“Yes, yes — that explains the likeness.
These resemblances of father and
son are sometimes truly extraordinary.
I remember, when young Mr. Harrison
came to see us, I was so much astonished
by his likeness to his father—”
And Lady Brand plunged into a
story, all about young Mr. Harrison, his
father, who had once been a very intimate
friend of hers, and other persons
connected with them.
We shall not inflict the good lady's
reminiscences upon the reader. When
the narrative was concluded, Innis rose,
left the apartment, stopped again in
front of Colonel Brand's dressing-room,
to look at the portrait, and then went
down the stairs, murmuring:
“I could swear that this was my
Lord Ruthven—or his ghost!”
