The light and frugal supper finished, the old woman departed with the plates, and he fell to his musings again. Several difficult affairs impended in the future, about the conduct of which he was doubtful. He dismissed them from his mind; why should he be always oppressed with matters of fact? What of the night? He rose, walked to the window, and drawing the curtains looked out. The street was very quiet, but in the distance he thought he heard the tramp of a patrol. All the houses were dark and sullen; overhead the stars shone brightly; it was a perfect night to watch them. He closed the window and taking a candle walked to a curtained door on one side of the room; it opened on a narrow, spiral stair which led to the flat roof. Most of the houses in Laurania were low, and Savrola when he reached the leads overlooked the sleeping city. Lines of gas-lamps marked the streets and squares, and brighter dots indicated the positions of the shipping in the harbour. But he did not long look at these; he was for the moment weary of men and their works. A small glass observatory stood in one corner of this aerial platform, the nose of the telescope showing through the aperture. He unlocked the door and entered. This was a side of his life that the world never saw; he was no mathematician intent on discovery or fame, but he loved to watch the stars for the sake of their mysteries. By a few manipulations the telescope was directed at the beautiful planet of Jupiter, at this time high in the northern sky. The glass was a powerful one, and the great planet, surrounded by his attendant moons, glowed with splendour. The clock-work gear enabled him to keep it under continual observation as the earth rolled over with the hours. Long he watched it, becoming each moment more under the power of the spell that star-gazing exercises on curious, inquiring humanity. At last he rose, his mind still far away from earth. Molara, Moret, the Party, the exciting scenes of the day, all seemed misty and unreal; another world, a world more beautiful, a world of boundless possibilities, enthralled his imagination. He thought of the future of Jupiter, of the incomprehensible periods of time that would elapse before the cooling process would render life possible on its surface, of the slow steady march of evolution, merciless, inexorable. How far would it carry them, the unborn inhabitants of an embryo world? Perhaps only to some vague distortion of the vital essence; perhaps further than he could dream of. All the problems would be solved, all the obstacles overcome; life would attain perfect developement. And then fancy, overleaping space and time, carried the story to periods still more remote. The cooling process would continue; the perfect developement of life would end in death; the whole solar system, the whole universe itself, would one day be cold and lifeless as a burned-out firework.