What faces were turned to him, what looks were cast upon him, what watchings, what judgments, hopes, he knew not. After the first habitual sweep of the eye, after the first movement of spirit toward Montjoy, he was the picture’s.
The church grew wide as earth. The chanting went up long coloured lanes to heaven’s gate. The setting sun sang, and the rising moon sang, and the stars, as through the dusk they strode nearer.
It was night. He was alone in his cell. Again he slept. He waked and knew that he was in her presence.
Softened glory, diminished that he might see her as he could see her. Her red and her blue, her form, her face, her voice—kneeling, he trembled with his joy as with a burden too great to bear. It was as ocean wave to a babe. Vast, crested, it curved above him. His life might go—he cared not for that, if on the other side of life he might still adore!
The voice! “Richard! Say thou for me to Silver Cross, ‘Go by the orchard, go by the hill where feed the sheep. Go to where shines a fir tree against the steep hill. Beside it you will find fallen earth and a little cave made bare, and in the stone over the cave my name. Let the Abbot of Silver Cross and the holiest among you enter. There shall you find a little well of clear water, and by token beside it a rose. The well hath been blessed by me and by all the host of heaven. Make you of the grot a chapel. Set my image there; make it a place that I may love. Make for the well a pool, and whosoever drinks of it and whosoever bathes therein, if he have faith he shall be completely healed, be he ill either of body or estate!’”
The music fell, then rose again. “That is my task for thee, Richard! That is the errand thou wilt do for me.”
The voice ceased. He thought that the light began to go away, her form to dim. He cried aloud, fear pushing him to wild utterance. “I will do it! But wilt thou come again? I may not live unless thou wilt come!”
There seemed pause, then said the voice like the balm of the world. “I will come once again—and perhaps thereafter, so thou servest me firmly!” And, as he bowed his head, as tears of sweetness, of exquisite rest in her word, rushed to his eyes, she was gone. Darkness—and again through the window the declining moon, and immediately the bell for the dawn office.