Yet was the under-current of hope so persistent that at times it was near faith.
Up to this hour Yellow Bird's sorcery had brought him nothing but the truth.

For him she had conjured the spirits of her people, and these spirits, speaking through Yellow Bird's lips, had saved him from Cassidy at the fishing camp and had performed the miracle on the shore of Wollaston and had predicted the salvation that had come to him out on the Barren.

And so--was it not conceivable that the other would also come true?
But these visions came to him only in flashes.

As he traveled through the hours the one vital desire of his being was to bring himself physically into the presence of Nada, to feel the wild joy of her in his arms once more, the crush of her lips to his, the caress of her hands in their old sweet way at his face--and to hear her voice, the girl's voice with the woman's soul behind it, crying out its undying love, as he had last heard it that night in the Missioner's cabin many months ago.

After this had happened, then--if fate decreed it so--all other things might end.