It was like the palace of the Beast in the ancient fairy story, where Beauty had wandered for hours through room after room filled with new marvels. Alice smiled whimsically at the thought. She was "Beauty," she reflected, and Llysanorh'--yes, he made a very good "Beast." Her buoyant spirits were rapidly recovering from the strain of her imprisonment. Finally, she tried one more door, and entered a wonderful laboratory fully equipped. And at the farther end, seated before a low table sat the Martian, his head resting on his folded arms. His whole attitude suggested hopeless desolation. He looked very lonely and remote, and somehow, to her, very pathetic. She stood, hesitating, uncertain of whether to advance or retreat. Finally she spoke his name softly. At her voice he raised his head and stared at her. And she saw that his face was lined and furrowed as if with some terrible strain, but his eyes were steady with resolve. "How serious you look," she said, coming into the middle of the room. "You seem so worried and anxious, Llysanorh'. Has something gone wrong with the flyer? And what did you do with Fernand and his machine?" "I left him recovering from the effects of the drug," he said, in a forced and unnatural voice which betrayed, even more than his expression, the disturbed state of his mind. "And nothing is wrong with the flyer. It is I--I with whom everything is wrong." "Oh, surely it can't be as bad as you think," said the girl, her quick sympathies aroused by his obvious misery. "Would it make you feel any better to tell me? We have always been such good friends, Llysanorh', and I might be able to help you." "Later, perhaps, later," he said, and then with an effort, "can you make yourself comfortable here for a few days, do you think? I brought the maid with me. You will find her waiting in your rooms for you. I don't think she will give you any trouble." "Oh, yes, I surely can," she replied. "It is lovely here. I have heard so much of this flyer. Why haven't you shown it to father and me before? The rooms are like those of a fairy palace. Tell me, Llysanorh', will it be long before we get back to Earth? Everyone"--she had been about to say Ralph, but checked herself--"everyone will be so worried about me." "We are never going back to Earth," he said. "Never going--why, what has happened then? Is there something wrong that you won't tell me?--or are you joking? But of course you're joking, Llysanorh', and for a minute I thought you were serious." "I was never more serious," he said, rising to his feet and facing her. "We are never going back, you and I." Alice looked at him wide-eyed, amazed and bewildered. "But I don't understand," she faltered. "Why, Llysanorh'?" It was then that the pent-up emotion of months burst the bonds of self-restraint that he had forced upon himself.