He who asked it was a monk in the habit of the Dominican Order, and very worn and weary he looked. Lady Sergeaux called for one of her women, and supplied him with the water which he sorely needed, as was manifest from the eager avidity with which he drank. When he had given back the goblet, and the woman was gone, the monk turned towards Philippa, and uttered words which astonished her no little.
“‘Quy de cette eaw boyra
Ancor soyf aura;
Mays quy de l’eaw boyra
Que moy luy donneray,
Jamays soyf n’aura
A l’éternité.’”
“You know that, brother?” she said breathlessly.
“Do you, Lady?” asked the monk—as Philippa felt, with a deeper than the merely literal meaning.
“I know the ‘ancor soyf aura,’” she said, mournfully; “I have not reached beyond that.”
“Then did you ask, and He did not give?” inquired the stranger.
“No—I never asked, for—” she was going on to add, “I never knew where to ask.”
“Then ’tis little marvel you never had, Lady,” answered the monk.
“But how to ask?—whom to ask? There may be the Well, but where is the way?”
“How to ask, Lady? As I asked you but now for that lower, poorer water, whereof whosoever drinketh shall thirst again. Whom to ask? Be there more Gods in Heaven than one? Ask the Master, not the servants. And where is the way? It was made on the red rood, thirteen hundred years ago, when ‘one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water.’ Over that stream of blood is the way to the Well of Living Water.”