CHILD IN WHITE [In a low voice] Thy faith has saved thee! Out of faith has sprung hope! [He goes toward KERSTI.
KERSTI. Please, dear, don't step on the ant!
CHILD IN WHITE. [Stoops and picks up something on a leaf] But the greatest of these be love—love of all living things, great or small! Now I shall send this ant into the woods to tell the king of all the ants, so that the little people may come here and gnaw the ropes to pieces, and you will be set free.
KERSTI. No, no! Don't talk like that!
CHILD IN WHITE. Doubt not—but believe! Believe, Kersti!—Believe!
KERSTI. How can I?
CHILD IN WHITE. Believe!
He steps behind the pillar again and disappears.
The stage grows darker.
NECK. [Appears with his harp in the middle of the lake and sings to the same melody as before] "I am hoping, I am hoping, that thy Redeemer still liveth!"
KERSTI. He sings of my Redeemer! He brings hope to me, who denied it to him!