It now occurred to me how absolutely absorbed I had become in the Martian investigation.  Ordinarily a sociable person, in the past week I had become a recluse.  College friends that I had seen almost daily since my return to Paris, I now completely neglected, even shunned, lest they should call at my rooms some evening when I was in wave contact with Mars.  It also occurred to me that, as surely as my friendship and necessity for them was declining, in like ratio was increasing an attachment for an inhabitant of another world.  I felt a strange soul kinship for this Martian, which seemed to spring up the moment I saw his image portrayed on my instrument.  And the feeling was not one of ordinary friendship.  I felt I was drawn to him by some mysterious power, that gave him the place of a brother in my affections—­a power that seemed to have brought us together, and now united us with a great common and compelling interest.  And yet as I pictured his handsome, almost beautiful face, there was still another face I had seen—­but where?  The Martian had been alone, yet I was conscious of a face that was wonderfully beautiful, that seemed the goal for which I was striving.  It led me to greater effort after failure; the face which I yearned to see and yet strangely dreaded seeing.

It was useless for me to try to understand such thoughts, and to banish them from my mind was impossible.  I was overcome with a sense of loneliness.  Looking at my watch, I found that it was already past the hour when Mars would be visible through the window on a clear night, but, alas, the sky showed no signs of clearing; though my instrument stood ready, it was useless.

But, obeying some irresistible impulse, I decided to turn on the current and stand by the instrument in case an opening in the clouds should occur, for even a moment.  I therefore turned the switch that controlled the current, and immediately, to my astonishment, the surface of wires became as brilliant as on the previous evening under a clear sky.  Turning away for a moment, to allow my eyes to become accustomed to the brilliancy, I noticed that the sky was still overcast with heavy rain clouds.  My joy at the discovery that the Martian projecting agent was not arrested by vapor was unbounded, for it meant that I could be in wave-contact with Mars every night, during the period that the planet was visible from Earth.

I approached the instrument with the intention of at once testing the diaphragm, but, to my surprise, my Martian friend was not there to greet me.  The room and its furnishings, however, were depicted as clearly as before, and I now had an opportunity to note the instruments, the large volumes of books, and the maps of the heavens which hung on the wall.  Everything pointed to this being a fully equipped Martian observatory, though the instruments were entirely strange to me.  I was examining these latter more closely, when heavy portieres parted, and my Martian friend stepped into the room.  So anxious was I to give him a pleasant greeting, instead of staring at him in a semi-stupefied condition, as I had done previously, that I forgot, for the moment, my determination to test my diaphragm at the first opportunity, and greeted him merely with a smile and a bow.