"Vanna," he cried breathlessly, "it is _true_! All my life I have feared and doubted. Even as a child, when my mother taught me at her knee, the doubts arose in my mind, and the questions. You have wondered why I never went to church. It would have been a mockery when I could not believe. I have read, and listened, and discussed; and out of it all came only more doubt, more confusion. It is my nature to mistrust--_was_ my nature, till I met you." His hand tightened on hers with almost painful pressure. "You have taught me the reality of goodness and truth, and now, through you, this has come--this revelation. It is true! There is another life. This world is not all. I have doubted all other evidence, but I cannot doubt what I have _seen_. They were there, Vanna, close around us, the spirits--the `angels' of Miggles's sweet old faith! We were too blind to see, but they were there, and she saw them. That light in her eyes! Can you ever forget? That was not death--it was life--the coming of life! Oh, my darling, my darling, what this means to me! A new heaven--a new earth. The falling of the scales!" He lifted his quivering face to the sky as though asking forgiveness of the God whom he had denied; but the woman by his side had no thought at that moment for anything in heaven or earth but himself. Amazement of joy following so hard upon grief seemed to sap the last remnant of strength. She trembled violently, and gripped at Piers's arm. He turned in alarm, but the face looking up to his was quivering with joy, not pain. "Vanna! What is it?" "You called me--you called me--" She broke off, trembling, shaking, blushing to the roots of her hair. "_What_ did you call me?" For a moment he stared bewildered; then remembrance came--the echo of his own words throbbed in his ear, bringing with them a second revelation, the revelation of his own heart. He seized her in a grasp violent in its intensity, and drew her towards him, gazing deep into her eyes. "Vanna, my beloved! This too! My love, and yours! A new earth indeed. The words said themselves, darling; they have lived so long in my heart that they slipped from my lips before I had realised my wealth. I who thought I could never love, to have walked into it, step after step, deliberately, blindly, until I found myself so deep down, so engulfed, that I could not be free if I would. Vanna, I have only lived since I knew you. It was you I needed all those empty years: you have given me life, joy, hope; you must give me the last thing, too--your love! After this vision I can't live without it. You are mine, Vanna; I can't give you up." He drew her head to his shoulder and pressed passionate kisses on her lips, her hair, her white, closed lids, and she clung to him, forgetting everything in the bliss of certainty, the intoxicating nearness, the touch of his lips on her own.