The Faith Healer Part 40

Dear me! That will be very _tippy_!

_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?