“That creature,” Brandon thought, “is almost exactly like my old dog Smokey.  I am very much mistaken if this is not the portrait of one of his ancestors.”

He turned to ask some question about it, and observed to his surprise that Mrs. Melcombe had left the room, and he was alone with Laura, who had seated herself on a sofa and taken a long piece of crochet-work from her pocket, which she was doing almost with the air of one who waits patiently till somebody else has finished his investigations.

“I thought you would be interested in that picture,” she said; “you recognise it, I suppose?”

“No!” he exclaimed.

“It used not to be here,” said Laura; “the dear grandmother, as long as she lived, always had it in her bedroom.  It’s Mr. Mortimer, your stepfather, when he was a boy, and that was his dog, a great favourite; when he ran away the dog disappeared—­it was always supposed that it ran after him.  I suppose,” continued Laura, impelled to say this to some one who was sure to be impressed by it—­“I suppose nobody ever did mourn as my grandmother did over the loss of those two sons.  Yet she never used to blame them.”

They did run away then, and they did keep away, and yet she did not blame them.  How deeply pathetic these things seemed.  Whatever it might be that had made his step-father write that letter, it appeared now to be thrown back to the time when he had divided himself thus from his family and taken his boy brother with him.

“And that other portrait,” said Laura, “we found up in one of the garrets, and hung here when the house was restored.  It is the portrait of my grandmother’s only brother, who was sixteen or eighteen years younger than she was.  His name was Melcombe, which was her maiden name, but ours, you know, was really Mortimer.  It is very much darkened by time and neglect, and never was of any particular value.”

“What has he got under his arm?” said Brandon.

“I think it is a cocked hat or some kind of hat.  I think they wore cocked hats then in the navy; he was a lieutenant in the navy.  You see some sort of gold lace on it, and on the hilt of his sword.”

“Did he die at sea?” asked Brandon.

“Yes.  My great-grandfather left this place to his son, and as he died unmarried it was to come to our eldest uncle, and then to grandmother, as it did, you know.”

“‘Its name was Melcombe, and it came from the sea,’” Brandon repeated inwardly, adding, “Well, the ghost can have had nothing to do with this mystery.  I shall trouble myself no more about him.”

“He was only about a year older than my oldest uncle,” proceeded Laura, “for grandmother married at seventeen.”

Brandon looked again.  Something in the two pictures reminded him of the portraits of the Flambourgh family.  They had evidently been done by the same artist.  Each youth had something under his left arm, each was turning his face slightly, and they both looked the same way.  Young Daniel Mortimer was so placed that his quiet eyes seemed to be always regarding the hearth, now empty of warmth.  The other, hung on the same wall, seemed to look out into the garden, and Laura said in a sentimental way that, considering the evident love she had borne her grandmother, was not at all out of place.