Reach those people!"

He was shocked and disheartened. He pleaded the probable utter
impracticability of such an enterprise. He might as well have talked to
a statue. It all ended with an outburst on her part.

"Talk with the Martians," said she, "and the next day I will become your
wife!"

He left the house a most unhappy man. What could he do? He loved the
girl devotedly, but what a task had she given him! Then, later, came
other reflections. After all, the end to be attained was a noble one,
and he could, in a measure, sympathize with her wild desire. The lover
in "The Man With a Broken Ear" had at least occasion for a little
jealousy. His own case was not so bad. He could not well be jealous of
an entire population of a distant planet. And to what better use could a
portion of his wealth be put than in the advancement of science! The
idea grew upon him. He would make the trial!

He was rewarded the next day when he told his fiancee what he had
decided upon. She was wildly delighted. "I love you more than ever now!"
she declared, "and I will work with you and plan with you and aid you
all I can. And," she added, roguishly, "remember that it is not all for
my sake. If you succeed you will be famous all over the world, and
besides, there'll come some money back to you. There is the reward of
one hundred thousand francs left in 1892 by Madame Guzman to any one who
should communicate with the people of another planet."

He responded, of course, that he was impelled to effort only by the
thought of hastening a wedding day, and then he went to his office and
wrote various letters to various astronomers. His friend Marston,
professor of astronomy in the University of Chicago, he visited in
person. He was not a laggard, this Julius Corbett, in anything he
undertook.

Then there was much work.

Marston, being an astronomer, believed in vast possibilities. Being a
man of sense, he could advise. He related to Corbett all that had been
suggested in the past for interstellar communication. He told of the
suggested advice of making figures in great white roads upon some of
Earth's vast plains, but dismissed the idea as too costly and not the
best. "We have a new agent now," he said. "There is electricity. We must
use that. And the figures must, of course, be geometrical. Geometry is
the same throughout all the worlds that are or have been or ever will
be."

And there was much debate and much correspondence and an exhibit