He had a dark patch over his eye, but our features were
absolutely the same. Then he smiled in a sardonic way which had been a
trick of his from his boyhood, and I knew that he was the same brother
who had driven me from my native land, and brought disgrace upon what
had been an honourable name. I went to the door and I admitted him. That would be about ten o'clock that night. "When he came into the glare of the lamp, I saw at once that he had
fallen upon very evil days. He had walked from Liverpool, and he was
tired and ill. I was quite shocked by the expression upon his face. My medical knowledge told me that there was some serious internal
malady. He had been drinking also, and his face was bruised as the
result of a scuffle which he had had with some sailors. 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 anyone 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.