The Abbot and the Prior of Westforest entered the small cavern. The bright sun was there; it was light enough. With them they took the monk Richard, and Brother Oswald whom all knew for right monk and Brother Ralph. There entered, too, the Lord of Montjoy. At first he would not. “She saith, Take the good—” But the Abbot drew him by the hand. There went in likewise one from Middle Forest,—Father Edmund the Preacher.
There was the well,—a little basin of clear water bubbling from the farther rock. It was March and the world leafless. But close beside the water lay a fresh rose, nor red nor white, of a colour like the dawn. Stem and leaf and blossom it lay, and in the water appeared its likeness. The Abbot stooped toward it. Montjoy laid hand on him. “No! Let this man lift it!” He and Richard Englefield and Brothers Oswald and Ralph saw a transfigured rose. It glowed, it beat; it was seen through tears.
Brother Richard kneeled before it, touched it with his forehead. Then in his two hands he bore it through the opening of the grot and showed it, lifted, to the folk.
Out of the hushed throng rang a voice. “The cave and well of Our Lady of the Rose!”
“That is it! That is it! Our Lady of the Rose!”
The Abbot lifted his hands. “It shall be kept for aye in reliquary. Lord of Montjoy—”
“I will give the reliquary!” Montjoy saw in imagination the rose blooming for aye, sending through gold and precious stones light and fragrance to Isabel.
It seemed that the sub-prior had brought from the Abbot’s house a silver dish and a square of fine white linen. Brother Richard laid the rose in the silver thing that he himself had carved.
Now all that might would press into the grot. At last order was had and like links of a massy chain in and forth passed the throng. There was a woman from Wander Mill, dumb for years, and it was known that she had not won healing from Saint Leofric. Now she came, she stooped, she lifted water in her hands and drank. She rose, she turned, she stammered, made strange sounds, then burst forth clear. “Praise God! Praise Blessed Lady!—Oh, children, I am speaking!”
Tears were in all eyes.