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I came down and went into the dining room . There were the mutton and the bread , both far gone now in decay , and a beer bottle overturned , just as I and the artilleryman had left them . My home was desolate . I perceived the folly of the faint hope I had cherished so long . And then a strange thing occurred . “ It is no use , ” said a voice . “ The house is deserted . No one has been here these ten days . Do not stay here to torment yourself . No one escaped but you . ” I was startled . Had I spoken my thought aloud ? I turned , and the French window was open behind me . I made a step to it , and stood looking out . And there , amazed and afraid , even as I stood amazed and afraid , were my cousin and my wife — my wife white and tearless . She gave a faint cry . “ I came , ” she said . “ I knew — knew — — ” She put her hand to her throat — swayed . I made a step forward , and caught her in my arms . X . THE EPILOGUE . I cannot but regret , now that I am concluding my story , how little I am able to contribute to the discussion of the many debatable questions which are still unsettled . In one respect I shall certainly provoke criticism . My particular province is speculative philosophy . My knowledge of comparative physiology is confined to a book or two , but it seems to me that Carver’s suggestions as to the reason of the rapid death of the Martians is so probable as to be regarded almost as a proven conclusion . I have assumed that in the body of my narrative . At any rate , in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined after the war , no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial species were found . That they did not bury any of their dead , and the reckless slaughter they perpetrated , point also to an entire ignorance of the putrefactive process . But probable as this seems , it is by no means a proven conclusion . Neither is the composition of the Black Smoke known , which the Martians used with such deadly effect , and the generator of the Heat - Rays remains a puzzle . The terrible disasters at the Ealing and South Kensington laboratories have disinclined analysts for further investigations upon the latter . Spectrum analysis of the black powder points unmistakably to the presence of an unknown element with a brilliant group of three lines in the green , and it is possible that it combines with argon to form a compound which acts at once with deadly effect upon some constituent in the blood . But such unproven speculations will scarcely be of interest to the general reader , to whom this story is addressed . None of the brown scum that drifted down the Thames after the destruction of Shepperton was examined at the time , and now none is forthcoming .
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