“No, no; I wasn't brought up a rope-dancer,” said he, gruffly. “If you can't manage to open the door for me—”
“But it's what I can. I can push back every bolt. Come round now, and I'll admit you.”
By the time Cutbill had reached the entrance, Jack had succeeded in opening the massive doors; and as he flung them wide, a flood of light poured into the little crypt, with its splendid altar and its silver lamps; its floor of tessellated marble, and its ceiling a mass of gilded tracery almost too bright to look on: but it was not at the glittering splendor of gold or gems that they now stood enraptured. It was in speechless wonderment of the picture that formed the altar-piece, which was a Madonna,—a perfect copy, in every lineament and line, of the Flora at Castello. Save that an expression of ecstatic rapture had replaced the look of joyous delight, they were the same, and unquestionably were derived from the same original.
“Do you know that?” cried Cutbill.
“Know it! Why, it's our own fresco at Castello.”
“And by the same hand, too,” cried Cutbill. “Here are the initials in the corner,—G. L.! Of all the strange things that I have ever met in life, this is the strangest!” And he leaned on the railing of the altar, and gazed on the picture with intense interest.
“I can make nothing of it,” muttered Jack.
“And yet there 's a great story in it,” said Cutbill, in a low, serious tone. “That picture was a portrait,—a portrait of the painter's daughter; and that painter's daughter was the wife of your grandfather, Montague Bramleigh; and it is her grandchild now, the man called Pracontal, who claims your estates.”
“How do you pretend to know all this?”
“I know it, chapter and verse. I have gone over the whole history with that old painter's journal before me. I have seen several studies of that girl's face,—'Enrichetta Lami,' she was called,—and I have read the entry of her marriage with your grandfather in the parish register. A terrible fact for your poor brother, for it clenches his ruin. Was there ever as singular a chance in life as the reappearance of this face here?”