The Haunted Man and the Ghosts Bargain | Page 9

was
buried, and made rugged steps thereof, for my worn feet to rest and rise
on."

"I AM that man," returned the Chemist.
"No mother's self-denying love," pursued the Phantom, "no father's
counsel, aided ME. A stranger came into my father's place when I was
but a child, and I was easily an alien from my mother's heart. My
parents, at the best, were of that sort whose care soon ends, and whose
duty is soon done; who cast their offspring loose, early, as birds do
theirs; and, if they do well, claim the merit; and, if ill, the pity."
It paused, and seemed to tempt and goad him with its look, and with the
manner of its speech, and with its smile.
"I am he," pursued the Phantom, "who, in this struggle upward, found a
friend. I made him--won him--bound him to me! We worked together,
side by side. All the love and confidence that in my earlier youth had
had no outlet, and found no expression, I bestowed on him."
"Not all," said Redlaw, hoarsely.
"No, not all," returned the Phantom. "I had a sister."
The haunted man, with his head resting on his hands, replied "I had!"
The Phantom, with an evil smile, drew closer to the chair, and resting
its chin upon its folded hands, its folded hands upon the back, and
looking down into his face with searching eyes, that seemed instinct
with fire, went on:
"Such glimpses of the light of home as I had ever known, had streamed
from her. How young she was, how fair, how loving! I took her to the
first poor roof that I was master of, and made it rich. She came into the
darkness of my life, and made it bright.-- She is before me!"
"I saw her, in the fire, but now. I hear her in music, in the wind, in the
dead stillness of the night," returned the haunted man.
"DID he love her?" said the Phantom, echoing his contemplative tone.
"I think he did, once. I am sure he did. Better had she loved him
less--less secretly, less dearly, from the shallower depths of a more
divided heart!"
"Let me forget it!" said the Chemist, with an angry motion of his hand.
"Let me blot it from my memory!"
The Spectre, without stirring, and with its unwinking, cruel eyes still
fixed upon his face, went on:
"A dream, like hers, stole upon my own life."
"It did," said Redlaw.
"A love, as like hers," pursued the Phantom, "as my inferior nature

might cherish, arose in my own heart. I was too poor to bind its object
to my fortune then, by any thread of promise or entreaty. I loved her far
too well, to seek to do it. But, more than ever I had striven in my life, I
strove to climb! Only an inch gained, brought me something nearer to
the height. I toiled up! In the late pauses of my labour at that time,--my
sister (sweet companion!) still sharing with me the expiring embers and
the cooling hearth,--when day was breaking, what pictures of the future
did I see!"
"I saw them, in the fire, but now," he murmured. "They come back to
me in music, in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night, in the
revolving years."
"--Pictures of my own domestic life, in aftertime, with her who was the
inspiration of my toil. Pictures of my sister, made the wife of my dear
friend, on equal terms--for he had some inheritance, we none--pictures
of our sobered age and mellowed happiness, and of the golden links,
extending back so far, that should bind us, and our children, in a radiant
garland," said the Phantom.
"Pictures," said the haunted man, "that were delusions. Why is it my
doom to remember them too well!"
"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