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ing half to himself.) That these lives of ours should be poured like a jelly, from one mould into another, until God Himself cannot remember what they were two years ago, or two hours ago!

Rhoda. Why do you say that? (He does not answer, but walks nervously about. Rhoda, watching him, speaks, after a silence.) Last month—out West—were there many people there?

Michaelis. No.—Two or three.

Rhoda. The papers said—

Michaelis. When the crowd began to gather, I—went away.

Rhoda. Why?

Michaelis. My time had not come.

Rhoda. Has it come now? (She comes closer.)—Has your time come now?

Michaelis. Yes.

Rhoda. How do you know?

Michaelis. (Points at the map.) It is written there!

Rhoda. How do you mean, written there?

Michaelis. Can't you see it?

Rhoda. I see the map, nothing more.

Michaelis. (Points again, gazing fixedly.) It seems to me to be written in fire.

Rhoda. What seems written?

Michaelis. What I have been doing, all these five years.

Rhoda. Since your work began?

Michaelis. It has never begun. Many times I have thought, "Now," and some man or woman has risen up healed, and looked at me with eyes of prophecy. But a Voice would cry, "On, on!" and I would go forward, driven by a force and a will not my own.—I did n't know what it all meant, but I know now. (He points at the map, his manner transformed with excitement and exaltation.) It is written there. It is written in letters of fire. My eyes are opened, and I see!

Rhoda. (Following his gaze, then looking at him again, awed and bewildered.) What is it that you see?

Michaelis. The cross!

Rhoda. I—I don't understand.

Michaelis. All those places where the hand was lifted for a moment, and the power flowed into me— (He places his finger at various points on the map; these points lie in two transverse lines, between the Mississippi and the Pacific; one line runs roughly north and south, the other east and west.) Look! There was such a place, and there another, and there, and there. And there was one, and there, and there.—Do you see?

Rhoda. I see.—It makes a kind of cross.

Michaelis. You see it too! And do you see what it means—this sign that my feet have marked across the length and breadth of a continent? (He begins again to pace the room.) —And that crowd of stricken souls out yonder, raised up as by miracle, their broken bodies crying to be healed,—do you see what they mean?

Rhoda. (In a steady voice.) They mean what my aunt said this morning. They mean that your great hour has come.

Michaelis. My hour! my hour! (He comes nearer, and speaks in a quieter tone.) I knew a young Indian once, a Hopi boy, who made songs and sang them to his people. One evening we sat on the roof of the chief's house and asked him to sing. He shook his head, and went away in the starlight. The next morning, I found him among the rocks under the mesa, with an empty bottle by his side.—He never sang again! Drunkenness had taken him. He never sang again, or made another verse.

Rhoda. What has that to do with you? It's not—? You don't mean that you—?

Michaelis. No. There is a stronger drink for such as I am!

Rhoda. (Forcing herself to go on.) What—"stronger drink"?

Michaelis. (Wildly.) The wine of this world! The wine-bowl that crowns the feasting table of the children of this world.

Rhoda. What do you mean by—the wine of this world?

Michaelis. You know that! Every woman knows. (He points out of the window, at the sky flushed with sunset color.) Out there, at this moment, in city and country, souls, thousands upon thousands of souls, are dashing in pieces the cup that holds the wine of heaven, the wine of God's shed blood, and lifting the cups of passion and of love, that crown the feasting table of the children of this earth! Look! The very sky is blood-red with the lifted cups. And we two are in the midst of them. Listen what I sing there, on the hills of light in the sunset: "Oh, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of my beloved!" (A song rises outside, loud and near at hand—Michaelis listens, his ex-