Then he approached the line of pear trees, and laid himself down in their shadow, his chin propped upon his hands, his eyes wandering over the expanse of the little valley that stretched away from the foot of the hill upon which the Mission was built.
Once again he summoned the Vision.

Once again he conjured up the Illusion.

Once again, tortured with doubt, racked with a deathless grief, he craved an Answer of the night.

Once again, mystic that he was, he sent his mind out from him across the enchanted sea of the Supernatural.

Hope, of what he did not know, roused up within him.
Surely, on such a night as this, the hallucination must define itself.
Surely, the Manifestation must be vouchsafed.
His eyes closed, his will girding itself to a supreme effort, his senses exalted to a state of pleasing numbness, he called upon Angele to come to him, his voiceless cry penetrating far out into that sea of faint, ephemeral light that floated tideless over the little valley beneath him.