"So you have come to me at last!" he said--"I have not merited your confidence till now! Why?"
His rich voice had a ring of deep reproach in its tone--and she was for a moment taken aback. Then her native self-possession and perfect assurance returned.
"Dear Father Aloysius, you do not want my confidence! You know all I can tell you!" she said--and drawing close to him she laid her hand on his arm--"Am I not right?"
A tremor shook him--gently he put her hand aside.
"You think I know!" he replied--"You imagine--"
"Oh, no, I imagine nothing!" and she smiled--"I am sure--yes, SURE!--that you have the secret of things that seem fabulous and yet are true! It was you who first told me of the Brazen City in the Great Desert,--you said it was a mere tradition--but you filled my mind with a desire to find it--"
"And you found it?" he interrupted, quickly--"You found it?"
"You know I did!" she replied--"Why ask the question? Messages on a Sound-Ray can reach YOU, as well as me!"
He moved to the stone bench which occupied a corner of the cloister and sat down. He was very pale and his eyes were feverishly bright. Presently he seemed to recover himself, and spoke more in his usual manner.
"Rivardi has been here every day"--he said--"He has talked of nothing but you. He told me that he and Gaspard fell suddenly asleep--for which they were grievously ashamed of themselves--and that you took control of the air-ship and turned it homeward before you had given them any chance to explore the desert--"
"Quite true!" she answered, tranquilly--"And--YOU knew all that before he told you! You knew that I was compelled to turn the ship homeward because it was not allowed to proceed! Dear Father Aloysius, you cannot hide yourself from me! You are one of the few who have studied the secrets of the approaching future,--the 'change' which is imminent--the 'world to come' which is coming! Yes!--and you are brave to live as you do in the fetters of a conventional faith when you have such a far wider outlook--"
He stopped her by a gesture, rising from where he sat and extending a hand of warning and authority.
"Child, beware what you say!" and his voice had a ring of sternness in its mellow tone--"If I know what you think I know, on what ground do you suppose I have built my knowledge? Only on that faith which you call 'conventional'--that faith which has never been understood by the world's majority! That faith which teaches of the God-in-Man, done to death by the Man WITHOUT God in him!--and who, nevertheless, by the spiritual strength of a resurrection from the grave, proves that there is no death but only continuous renewal of life! This is no mere 'convention' of faith,--no imaginary or traditional tale--it is pure scientific fact. The virginal conception of divinity in woman, and the transfiguration of manhood, these things are true--and the advance of scientific discovery will prove them so beyond all denial. We have held the faith, AS IT SHOULD BE HELD, for centuries,--and it has led us, and continues to lead us, to all we know."