“Why,” she said, “the place should be kept just as it is, a museum of George the Fourth fashion in furniture. Here is a guitar. Did that lady play the guitar as well as the harp and the piano? The pictures are all water-colours. The glass has partly preserved them, but some damp has got in; they are all injured. I should like to get them all copied for studies of the time and its taste. They are good pictures, too. This one looks like a water-colour copy of a Constable. Was he living then? And this is a portrait.” She started. “Good heavens! what is this?”
“This? It is evidently a portrait,” said Leonard. “Why, Constance----”
For she was looking into it with every sign of interest and curiosity.
“How in the world did this picture come here?” Leonard looked at it.
“I cannot tell you,” he said; “it is only my second visit to this room. It is a young man. A pleasing and amiable face; the short hair curled by the barber’s art, I suppose. The face is familiar; I don’t know why----”
“Leonard, it is the face of my own great-grandfather. How did it come here? I have a copy, or the original, in my own possession. How did it come here? Was he a friend of your people?”
“I know nothing at all about it. By the rolled collar and the curly hair and the little whiskers I should say that the original must have been a contemporary of my ancestor the Recluse. Stop! there is a name on the frame. Can you read it?” He brushed away the dust. “‘Langley Holme, 1825,’ Langley Holme! What is it, Constance?”
“Oh, Leonard, Langley Holme--Langley Holme--he was my great-grandfather. And he was murdered; I remember to have heard of it--he was murdered. Then, it was here, and he was that old man’s brother-in-law, and--and--your Tragedy is mine as well.”
“Why, Constance, are you not jumping to a conclusion? How do you know that the murder in Campaigne Park was that of Langley Holme?”
“I don’t know it; I am only certain of it. Besides, that letter. Algernon and Langley were in the study. The letter tells us. Oh, I have no doubt--no doubt at all. This is his portrait; he was here the day before--the day before the terrible Tragedy. It must have been none other--it could have been none other. Leonard, this is very strange. You confide your story to me, you bring me out to see the spot where it happened and the house of the Recluse, and I find that your story is mine. Oh, to light upon it here and with you! It is strange, it is wonderful! Your story is mine as well,” she repeated, looking into his face; “we have a common tragedy.”