"Delusions," echoed the Phantom in its changeless voice, and
glaring on him with its changeless eyes. "For my friend (in whose
breast my confidence was locked as in my own), passing between me
and the centre of the system of my hopes and struggles, won her to
himself, and shattered my frail universe. My sister, doubly dear,
doubly devoted, doubly cheerful in my home, lived on to see me
famous, and my old ambition so rewarded when its spring was broken,
and then--"

"Then died," he interposed. "Died, gentle as ever; happy; and with
no concern but for her brother. Peace!"

The Phantom watched him silently.

"Remembered!" said the haunted man, after a pause. "Yes. So well
remembered, that even now, when years have passed, and nothing is
more idle or more visionary to me than the boyish love so long
outlived, I think of it with sympathy, as if it were a younger
brother's or a son's. Sometimes I even wonder when her heart first
inclined to him, and how it had been affected towards me.--Not
lightly, once, I think.--But that is nothing. Early unhappiness, a
wound from a hand I loved and trusted, and a loss that nothing can
replace, outlive such fancies."

"Thus," said the Phantom, "I bear within me a Sorrow and a Wrong.
Thus I prey upon myself. Thus, memory is my curse; and, if I could
forget my sorrow and my wrong, I would!"

"Mocker!" said the Chemist, leaping up, and making, with a wrathful
hand, at the throat of his other self. "Why have I always that