Old Melmoth at this moment seemed to be in a deep stupor; his eyes lost that little expression they had before, and his hands, that had convulsively been catching at the blankets, let go their short and quivering grasp, and lay extended on the bed like the claws of some bird that had died of hunger,—­so meager, so yellow, so spread.  John, unaccustomed to the sight of death, believed this to be only a sign that he was going to sleep; and, urged by an impulse for which he did not attempt to account to himself, caught up the miserable light, and once more ventured into the forbidden room,—­ the blue chamber of the dwelling.  The motion roused the dying man;—­he sat bolt upright in his bed.  This John could not see, for he was now in the closet; but he heard the groan, or rather the choked and gurgling rattle of the throat, that announces the horrible conflict between muscular and mental convulsion.  He started, turned away; but, as he turned away, he thought he saw the eyes of the portrait, on which his own was fixed, move, and hurried back to his uncle’s bedside.

Old Melmoth died in the course of that night, and died as he had lived, in a kind of avaricious delirium.  John could not have imagined a scene so horrible as his last hours presented.  He cursed and blasphemed about three halfpence, missing, as he said, some weeks before, in an account of change with his groom, about hay to a starved horse that he kept.  Then he grasped John’s hand, and asked him to give him the sacrament.  “If I send to the clergyman, he will charge me something for it, which I cannot pay,—­ I cannot.  They say I am rich,—­look at this blanket;—­but I would not mind that, if I could save my soul.”  And, raving, he added, “Indeed, Doctor, I am a very poor man.  I never troubled a clergyman before, and all I want is, that you will grant me two trifling requests, very little matters in your way,—­save my soul, and (whispering) make interest to get me a parish coffin,—­I have not enough left to bury me.  I always told everyone I was poor, but the more I told them so, the less they believed me.”

John, greatly shocked, retired from the bedside, and sat down in a distant corner of the room.  The women were again in the room, which was very dark.  Melmoth was silent from exhaustion, and there was a deathlike pause for some time.  At this moment John saw the door open, and a figure appear at it, who looked round the room, and then quietly and deliberately retired, but not before John had discovered in his face the living original of the portrait.  His first impulse was to utter an exclamation of terror, but his breath felt stopped.  He was then rising to pursue the figure, but a moment’s reflection checked him.  What could be more absurd, than to be alarmed or amazed at a resemblance between a living man and the portrait of a dead one!  The likeness was doubtless strong enough to strike him even in that darkened room, but it was doubtless only a likeness; and though it might be imposing enough to terrify an old man of gloomy and retired habits, and with a broken constitution, John resolved it should not produce the same effect on him.