“Yet a higher Power!” whispered Regan. “If there were a God, it would be like this! Is there then something still withheld that an angel longs for?” he asked.
“In this star, yes—not in the later heavens! On Earth I prayed for another life; now I am living it! I can only govern something already created!”
“Harness a satellite!” said Regan.
“What if I unbalance the poising of the universe, bring suns and stars clashing into chaos?”
“Still I must go! I can see her before they fall!”
“Regan, think! No more should Rondah be a fair young girl! Those earthly faces have changed! They are dead, some of those on Earth!”
“Rondah is not dead!”
“She may be old, bent, wrinkled, uncomely!”
“For all that I must go back! She is my love! Do you know what I know? She was never beautiful! Her brown eyes were heavy with fatigue, her pale face almost always dull, her hair coarse, her gnarled hands, even then, marred by toil from which she must not rest! Now, she is old, cheerless and broken-hearted! She thinks me dead! I doubt if she can smile! Poverty has followed her all her life! Care has weighed upon her! Loneliness has dwarfed her intellect! Ignorance has kept her very silent!
“Once, when I was a desperate, ragged vagabond, she came to my side and whispered: ‘Do not be utterly discouraged, Regan! You are different from the others, greater than those who despise you!’ Later, when all men shunned me, when they complained that my name disgraced their country, she said: ‘Regan, so long as I live you have always a friend! I am poor, but I am one in the world!’ Now, I want her here to share my throne! I want her here that I may give her a world!”