Gerald, who had been able to leave his room, had come down to the study, and as I entered it I found him turning over the pages of an album of portraits.
I went over and sat down beside him, and congratulated him on his improved appearance. He shook his head sadly, and then, hoping to turn his thoughts from their object, which I had no doubt of, I put my finger on the album.
“Who is this?” said I.
It was the figure of an old lady.
“She was an aunt of mine.”
I turned over the leaf, and the next portrait was that of the man I had seen in the vision! For a moment I held my breath; then bending down over the album, that my face might not betray me, I asked:
“Who is this?”
“A half-brother, Frank L——,” he answered. “He was my mother’s son by her first husband. Mother was a widow when she married father.”
I burned to ask another question, but feared I might betray myself.
“She was very fond of him,” he went on, “as fond as she was of me—fonder, I sometimes think, because he did not turn out too well. He was a soldier, and left his regiment under rather cloudy circumstances; but I don’t know the particulars.”