One day, when the two friends were visiting the museum, their reminiscences, which had been thus far very vague, were brightened, like a landscape at night, by a flash of lightning. Suddenly they _recognized_ the appearance of Paris during the Exposition of 1867. Their memory became more definite. They each felt, individually, that they had lived there; and under this strong impression they also felt sure that they had lived there together. Their memory gradually grew clearer, not by interrupted gleams, but rather as the light grows stronger from the beginning of dawn. Then they both remembered, as if by inspiration, that sentence of Scripture: "In my Father's house are many mansions;" and this other, from Jesus to Nicodemus: "Verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.... Ye must be born again." From that day they never doubted their former earthly existence, but were convinced that they were continuing on the planet Mars the life they had lived before. They belonged to the cycle of the great minds of all ages, who know that human destiny does not end with the present world, but continues in heaven, and who also know that each planet--Mars, the Earth, or any other--is a star of heaven. The rather singular fact of the change of sex, which seemed to me to be very important, was really without any weight whatever. Spero told me that souls, contrary to our ideas, have no sex, and that their destinies are the same. I also learned that on that planet, so much less material than our own, organisms have no resemblance whatever to terrestrial bodies. Conceptions and births are effected in another way, which reminds one, but under a more spiritual form, of the fecundation and blooming of flowers. Pleasure has no bitterness. Heavy earthly burdens and the anguish of grief are unknown there. Everything there is more aerial, more ethereal, and less material. The Martials might be called winged, sentient, living flowers; but in fact no earthly being can serve as comparison to aid us in imagining their form and manner of existence. I listened to the translated soul's story almost without interrupting him, for it seemed to me all the time as if he would disappear as he had come. However, remembering my dream, of which I had been reminded by the coincidence of preceding descriptions with what I had seen, I could not keep from telling my celestial friend of that surprising vision, and expressing my surprise at not having seen him on my trip to Mars,--a fact which made me doubt the reality of the journey. "But," he answered, "I saw you perfectly well, and you both saw and spoke to me, for it was I." The tones of his voice were so odd at these last words that I suddenly recognized in them the melodious voice of the beautiful Martial girl who had so enchanted me.