LIS.

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.

_He has stopped before the map and stands gazing at it._

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 didn'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