_Rhoda enters._

MICHAELIS.

You are here! The fear came over me, just now--

RHODA.

I could not go until I had told you the truth--about myself--about us.

MICHAELIS.

You will tell me the whole truth, and I will tell you the same. But
that will be for later. Come! Come away with me, into the new life.

RHODA.

A life rooted in the failure of all that life has meant to you from the
beginning!

MICHAELIS.

Until yesterday I did not know what my life was.

RHODA.

You do not know that, even yet. You know it now less than ever--what
your life is, what it means to you, what it means to the world.

MICHAELIS.

To the world it can mean nothing. That is ended. But to us it can mean
happiness. Let us make haste to gather it. Come!

RHODA.

Where do you want me to go?

MICHAELIS.

Anywhere--to that place I told you of--high in the great mountains.

RHODA.

I was there last night.

MICHAELIS.

In your thoughts?

RHODA.

I was there, and saw all the beauty of it, all the peace. But one thing
was not there, and for lack of it, in a little while the beauty faded
and the peace was gone.

MICHAELIS.

What was not there?

RHODA.

The work you have to do.

MICHAELIS.

That was a dream I could not realize. I have striven, and I have
failed.

RHODA.

Do you know why you have failed?

MICHAELIS.

Yes.

RHODA.

Tell me why.

MICHAELIS.

Because I have loved you more than the visions that came to me in
desert places, more than the powers that fell upon me at the bedside of
the sick, more than the spirit hands and spirit voices that have guided
me on my way.

RHODA.

What of the sick and suffering out yonder, who are waiting and hoping
against hope? What of them?

MICHAELIS.

I cannot help them.

RHODA.

Once you dreamed you could.

MICHAELIS.

Yes. But that is over.

RHODA.

And who is to blame that that great dream is over?

MICHAELIS.

No one is to blame. It has happened so.

RHODA.

Doesn't it seem strange that the love of a woman entering into your
heart should take away such a dream as that?

MICHAELIS.

I do not question. It is so.

RHODA.

But if your love had fallen, by some sad chance, upon a woman who was
not worthy of love?

MICHAELIS.

What are you saying?

RHODA.

You know less than nothing of me. You have not asked me a single
question about my life.

MICHAELIS.

There was no need.

RHODA.

There was need! There was ne