terious apparition on the mountain which had
brought them together. Georges was about to resume his interrupted
studies of the Aurora Borealis, which he wished to trace to its source
by means of a balloon ascent, and Iclea intended to accompany him in his
voyage through the air.

To my great regret I was unable to go with them to Norway, as my duties
as an astronomer kept me in Paris. I anxiously awaited that
extraordinary agitation of the magnetic needle which announces the
existence of an Aurora Borealis in Northern Europe. When at last the
magnetic perturbation occurred in the observatory, I rejoiced to think
that Spero and his bride were floating high, feasting their eyes on the
most gorgeous of spectacles.

But suddenly an indefinable feeling of uneasiness came over me, which
grew into a dreadful presentiment of disaster. Long before the telegram
arrived from Christiania I knew what had happened. Georges and Iclea
were dead!

Every reader of the newspapers next morning knew as much as I did. An
escape of gas which could not be stopped sent the balloon hurtling to
the earth. Spero threw everything movable out of the car in a vain
attempt to lighten it and break the force of the descent. The balloon
still kept falling; then Iclea, with a wild courage born of love, saved
Georges' life by leaping out of the car. Relieved of her weight, the
balloon rose up, but Spero had now no wish to live. He jumped out with a
wild cry, and his body crashed on the edge of the lake into which Iclea
had fallen. There the mortal remains of the two lovers now lie, covered
by a single stone. But where were their souls?

One night Georges Spero remembered his promise to me, and returned to
earth.

_III.--A Soul from Mars_

Sitting alone on the top of the ancient castle of Montlhery, I was
conducting an experiment in optics by means of electrical communications
with two assistants at Paris and Juvisy. I was trying to find out if the
rays of different colours in the spectrum travel at the same rate. It
was just on midnight before I brought the experiment to a successful
conclusion. As I covered up my instruments, some one said, "You would
not have brought that off, Camille, if it had not been for me. I gave
you the idea of comparing the violet vibrations with the red."

I turned round with a cry of fear. Georges Spero was sitting in the
moonlight on the parapet, looking at me with a smile.

"Are you afraid of me, Camille?" he sa