isen, with healing in its wings!

_She crosses the porch and disappears._

RHODA.

I felt something dragging me back. It was Aunt Mary's spirit.

MICHAELIS.

No, it was mine.

RHODA.

Yours?

MICHAELIS.

My spirit, crying to you that I was delivered.

RHODA.

I delivered you. That is enough happiness for one life.

MICHAELIS.

You delivered me, yes. But not as you dream. Yesterday when the
multitude began to gather, the thing I had been waiting for all my life
was there, and I--because of you--I was not ready. In that blind hour
my life sank in ruin.--I had thought love denied to such as had my work
to do, and in the darkness of that thought disaster overwhelmed me.--I
have come to know that God does not deny love to any of his children,
but gives it as a beautiful and simple gift to them all.--Upon each
head be the use that is made of it!

RHODA.

It is not I--who--harm you?

MICHAELIS.

It is you who bless me, and give me back the strength that I had lost.

RHODA.

I?

MICHAELIS.

A little while ago you told me your life's bitter story. I tasted your
struggle, went down with you into the depths of your anguish, and in
those depths,--the miracle! Behold, once more the stars looked down
upon me from their places, and I stood wondering as a child wonders.
Out of those depths arose new-born happiness and new-risen hope. For in
those star-lit depths of pain and grief, I had found at last true love.
You needed me. You needed all the powers I had thrown away for your
sake. You needed what the whole world needs--healing, healing, and as I
rose to meet that need, the power that I had lost poured back into my
soul.

RHODA.

Oh, if I thought that could be!

MICHAELIS.

By the mystery that is man, and the mercy that is God, I say it is
so.--

_Puts his hand on her head, and gazes into her face._

I looked into your eyes once, and they were terrible as an army with
banners. I look again now, and I see they are only a girl's eyes, very
weak, very pitiful. I told you of a place, high in the great mountains.
I tell you now of another place higher yet, in more mysterious
mountains. Let us go there together, step by step, from faith to faith,
and from strength to strength, for I see depths of life open and
heights of love come out, which I never dreamed of till now!

_A song rises outside, nearer and louder than before._

RHODA.

Against your own words they trust you still.

M