Born within a few minutes of each other, they had lived, as it were, wedded lives; side by side and hand in hand they had grown from boyhood to manhood, shared troubles and pleasures, and were in rare and perfect harmony. When one rejoiced the other rejoiced, when one was sad the other was sad. The severance of two such natures was therefore no common severance, and the scene of their last meeting and parting, as described to me by Silvain, must have been heartrending. "'I felt,' said Silvain, 'as if I had lost the better part of myself--nay, as if I had lost my very self. But that I was conscious, and amenable to ordinary human sensations, I should have doubted that I lived. It is impossible for me to describe my despair; and my brother suffered as I suffered. I gathered this from his letters, as he must have gathered the knowledge of my sufferings from mine. Happily we were not debarred from the consolation of corresponding with each other. Not only routes but dates had been carefully prepared by our father, and I knew from day to day where Kristel was, and where he would be to-morrow. One night--I was in Spain at the time--I had a vivid dream, in which Kristel played the principal part. It was, as most dreams are, panoramic, phantasmagoric. There was a lake; upon it a pleasure boat; in the boat six persons, two boatmen, two ladies, and two gentlemen. One of the gentlemen was Kristel; the faces of the others were strange to me. They were laughing and singing and conversing gaily. The sails were set, and the boat was ploughing its way swiftly onwards. Suddenly the clouds which had been fair, became overcast; the boatmen were busy with the sails. A lurch, and one of the ladies was in the water, struggling for life. Her white arms were upraised, her face was blanched with terror; in a moment she sank. Then my brother stood upright in the boat, and plunged into the lake. All was confusion. A whirl of clouds, of human faces, of troubled waters, upon the surface of which Kristel appeared, supporting the insensible form of the lady. They were pulled into the boat, and my dream ended. I awoke, much agitated, and when the violent beating of my heart abated, I wrote an account of my dream, omitting no detail. In my next letter to Kristel, I said nothing of my dream, but on the fifth day I received one from him In which he gave me an account of the perilous adventure, his description tallying exactly with all the particulars of my dream. In this way I discovered that there was between me and Kristel a strange, mysterious link of sympathy, through which each was made acquainted with any danger or peril which threatened the other.'" CHAPTER XI.