Here terminates the first phase in the history of John Pollexfen. PHASE THE SECOND. "Useless! useless! all useless!" exclaimed John Pollexfen, as he dashed a glass negative, which he had most elaborately prepared, into the slop-bucket. "Go, sleep with your predecessors." After a moment's silence, he again spoke: "But I know _it exists_. Nature has the secret locked up securely, as she thinks, but I'll tear it from her. Doesn't the eye see? Is not the retina impressible to the faintest gleam of light? What telegraphs to my soul the colors of the rainbow? Nothing but the eye, the human eye. And shall John Pollexfen be told, after he has lived half a century, that the compacted humors of this little organ can do more than his whole laboratory? By heaven! I'll wrest the secret from the labyrinth of nature, or pluck my own eyes from their sockets." Thus soliloquized John Pollexfen, a few days after the events narrated in the last chapter. He was seated at a table, in a darkened chamber, with a light burning, though in the middle of the day, and his countenance bore an unmistakable expression of disappointment, mingled with disgust, at the failure of his last experiment. He was evidently in an ill-humor, and seemed puzzled what to do next. Just then a light tap came at the door, and in reply to an invitation to enter, the pale, delicate features of Lucile Marmont appeared at the threshold. "Oh! is it you, my child?" said the photographer, rising. "Let me see your touches." After surveying the painted photographs a moment, he broke out into a sort of artistic glee: "Beautiful! beautiful! an adept, quite an adept! Who taught you? Come, have no secrets from me; I'm an old man, and may be of service to you yet. What city artist gave you the cue?"