different from me--and when at last he was able to keep himself going
for a week or two he had my hair cut short and let a mustache grow,
and began sending his damned insolent letters through the mail to my
office.

"Now you know, Dr. Annister, why I couldn't explain my absences any
better. Each time that he pushes me down and gets possession of my
body he keeps it longer. Now he's threatening me with annihilation. He
says that the next time he comes he's going to stay. And I'm at the
end of my strength, doctor. I've fought him back, and he's fought to
get out, for hours, and days. It's worst at night, because, so far,
the change has always taken place when I was asleep. For the last two
nights I have not slept--I've been afraid to close my eyes. I've
tramped up and down my apartment and I've drank brandy and I've gone
around town and raised hell. But I can't fight him off much longer
and I've got to have some sleep. Unless you can help me I've come to
the end."

Dr. Annister was looking at him gravely, sympathetically, the deepest
interest manifest in his countenance. "I hope I can help you, Felix. I
hope I can. We'll try. I wish you had come to me with this long ago.
It might have been easier. But I need to know still more about it.
The case is very peculiar, very interesting, and it has features
that differentiate it from any other that has been studied by any
physician. These dreams that the whole thing seems to have grown out
of--try to remember, Felix, were they preceded by any severe nervous
shock, an illness, anything that might have aided in the breaking up
of your personality?"

Brand hesitated and a faint color crept into his face. He knew when
they began and it was a thing he did not like to think of, even now,
after so many years and the change which these later months had made
in his character. But the doctor's gaze was upon him and he felt
compulsion in it.

"I think," he said slowly, "it must have been perhaps twenty years or
more ago. I had just entered my teens. My sister and I were in a tree
in our yard and she fell out and was badly hurt. She--she has never
recovered. It was a good deal of a shock to me. I began to notice the
dreams soon afterward. But they weren't very frequent."

"Just so. It might have been that." The doctor was tapping his
finger-tips together thoughtfully. There was something he wanted to
know, which he must find out. But he did not believe that the man
before him would a