It was to cover his injured
eye that he wore this patch, which he removed when he entered the room. He was himself dressed in a pea-jacket and flannel shirt, and his feet
were bursting through his boots. But his poverty had only made him more
savagely vindictive towards me. His hatred rose to the height of a
mania. I had been rolling in money in England, according to his account,
while he had been starving in South America. I cannot describe to you
the threats which he uttered or the insults which he poured upon me. My
impression is, that hardships and debauchery had unhinged his reason. He
paced about the room like a wild beast, demanding drink, demanding
money, and all in the foulest language. I am a hot-tempered man, but I
thank God that I am able to say that I remained master of myself, and
that I never raised a hand against him. My coolness only irritated him
the more. He raved, he cursed, he shook his fists in my face, and then
suddenly a horrible spasm passed over his features, he clapped his hand
to his side, and with a loud cry he fell in a heap at my feet. I raised
him up and stretched him upon the sofa, but no answer came to my
exclamations, and the hand which I held in mine was cold and clammy. His
diseased heart had broken down. His own violence had killed him. “For a long time I sat as if I were in some dreadful dream, staring at
the body of my brother. I was aroused by the knocking of Mrs. Woods, who
had been disturbed by that dying cry. I sent her away to bed. Shortly
afterwards a patient tapped at the surgery door, but as I took no
notice, he or she went off again. Slowly and gradually as I sat there a
plan was forming itself in my head in the curious automatic way in which
plans do form. When I rose from my chair my future movements were
finally decided upon without my having been conscious of any process of
thought. It was an instinct which irresistibly inclined me towards one
course. “Ever since that change in my affairs to which I have alluded, Bishop’s
Crossing had become hateful to me. My plans of life had been ruined, and
I had met with hasty judgments and unkind treatment where I had expected
sympathy. It is true that any danger of scandal from my brother had
passed away with his life; but still, I was sore about the past, and
felt that things could never be as they had been. It may be that I was
unduly sensitive, and that I had not made sufficient allowance for
others, but my feelings were as I describe. Any chance of getting away
from Bishop’s Crossing and of everyone in it would be most welcome to
me. And here was such a chance as I could never have dared to hope for,
a chance which would enable me to make a clean break with the past. “There was this dead man lying upon the sofa, so like me that save for
some little thickness and coarseness of the features there was no
difference at all. No one had seen him come and no one would miss him. We were both clean shaven, and his hair was about the same length as my
own. If I changed clothes with him, then Dr. Aloysius Lana would be
found lying dead in his study, and there would be an end of an
unfortunate fellow, and of a blighted career. There was plenty of ready
money in the room, and this I could carry away with me to help me to
start once more in some other land. In my brother’s clothes I could walk
by night unobserved as far as Liverpool, and in that great seaport I
would soon find some means of leaving the country. After my lost hopes,
the humblest existence where I was unknown was far preferable, in my
estimation, to a practice, however successful, in Bishop’s Crossing,
where at any moment I might come face to face with those whom I should
wish, if it were possible, to forget. I determined to effect the change. “And I did so. I will not go into particulars, for the recollection is
as painful as the experience; but in an hour my brother lay, dressed
down to the smallest detail in my clothes, while I slunk out by the
surgery door, and taking the back path which led across some fields, I
started off to make the best of my way to Liverpool, where I arrived the
same night. My bag of money and a certain portrait were all I carried
out of the house, and I left behind me in my hurry the shade which my
brother had been wearing over his eye. Everything else of his I took
with me. “I give you my word, sir, that never for one instant did the idea occur
to me that people might think that I had been murdered, nor did I
imagine that any one might be caused serious danger through this
stratagem by which I endeavoured to gain a fresh start in the world. On
the contrary, it was the thought of relieving others from the burden of
my presence which was always uppermost in my mind. A sailing vessel was
leaving Liverpool that very day for Corunna, and in this I took my
passage, thinking that the voyage would give me time to recover my
balance, and to consider the future. But before I left my resolution
softened. I bethought me that there was one person in the world to whom
I would not cause an hour of sadness. She would mourn me in her heart,
however harsh and unsympathetic her relatives might be. She understood
and appreciated the motives upon which I had acted, and if the rest of
her family condemned me, she, at least, would not forget. And so I sent
her a note under the seal of secrecy to save her from a baseless grief. If under the pressure of events she broke that seal, she has my entire
sympathy and forgiveness. “It was only last night that I returned to England, and during all this
time I have heard nothing of the sensation which my supposed death had
caused, nor of the accusation that Mr. Arthur Morton had been concerned
in it. It was in a late evening paper that I read an account of the
proceedings of yesterday, and I have come this morning as fast as an
express train could bring me to testify to the truth.”

Such was the remarkable statement of Dr. Aloysius Lana which brought the
trial to a sudden termination. A subsequent investigation corroborated
it to the extent of finding out the vessel in which his brother Ernest
Lana had come over from South America. The ship’s doctor was able to
testify that he had complained of a weak heart during the voyage, and
that his symptoms were consistent with such a death as was described. As to Dr. Aloysius Lana, he returned to the village from which he had
made so dramatic a disappearance, and a complete reconciliation was
effected between him and the young squire, the latter having
acknowledged that he had entirely misunderstood the other’s motives in
withdrawing from his engagement. That another reconciliation followed
may be judged from a notice extracted from a prominent column in the
_Morning Post_:—

    A marriage was solemnized upon September 19th, by the Rev.