“I come out of the past to you,” he said, “with the memory of an age that hoped.  My age was an age of dreams—­of beginnings, an age of noble hopes; throughout the world we had made an end of slavery; throughout the world we had spread the desire and anticipation that wars might cease, that all men and women might live nobly, in freedom and peace....  So we hoped in the days that are past.  And what of those hopes?  How is it with man after two hundred years?

“Great cities, vast powers, a collective greatness beyond our dreams.  For that we did not work, and that has come.  But how is it with the little lives that make up this greater life?  How is it with the common lives?  As it has ever been—­sorrow and labour, lives cramped and unfulfilled, lives tempted by power, tempted by wealth, and gone to waste and folly.  The old faiths have faded and changed, the new faith—.  Is there a new faith?

“Charity and mercy,” he floundered; “beauty and the love of beautiful things—­effort and devotion!  Give yourselves as I would give myself—­as Christ gave Himself upon the Cross.  It does not matter if you understand.  It does not matter if you seem to fail.  You know—­in the core of your hearts you know.  There is no promise, there is no security—­nothing to go upon but Faith.  There is no faith but faith—­faith which is courage....”

Things that he had long wished to believe, he found that he believed.  He spoke gustily, in broken incomplete sentences, but with all his heart and strength, of this new faith within him.  He spoke of the greatness of self-abnegation, of his belief in an immortal life of Humanity in which we live and move and have our being.  His voice rose and fell, and the recording appliances hummed as he spoke, dim attendants watched him out of the shadow....

His sense of that silent spectator beside him sustained his sincerity.  For a few glorious moments he was carried away; he felt no doubt of his heroic quality, no doubt of his heroic words, he had it all straight and plain.  His eloquence limped no longer.  And at last he made an end to speaking.  “Here and now,” he cried, “I make my will.  All that is mine in the world I give to the people of the world.  All that is mine in the world I give to the people of the world.  To all of you.  I give it to you, and myself I give to you.  And as God wills to-night, I will live for you, or I will die.”

He ended.  He found the light of his present exaltation reflected in the face of the girl.  Their eyes met; her eyes were swimming with tears of enthusiasm.

“I knew,” she whispered.  “Oh!  Father of the World—­Sire!  I knew you would say these things....”

“I have said what I could,” he answered lamely and grasped and clung to her outstretched hands.

CHAPTER XXIV

WHILE THE AEROPLANES WERE COMING

The man in yellow was beside them.  Neither had noted his coming.  He was saying that the south-west wards were marching.  “I never expected it so soon,” he cried.  “They have done wonders.  You must send them a word to help them on their way.”