Could he doubt? It was the great picture come alive! Could he doubt? She spoke--and he had not uttered that dart of thought. “Not that that painter could see me as I am in glory--but knowing that thou lovest me so, I come to thee so! I come to thee as thou canst see me, Richard!” She was _real_, she was not tinted air. _Real_--oh, _real_! Soft playing light was about her feet, her form, her head, her outspread and glorious dark hair. Her eyes were books, her mouth upland meadows of flowers; the blue and red of her dress, her mantle, trembled and was alive. Life went out of her toward him, his life leaped to meet it. Life at last, _life_! _life_! He sprang from his pallet, he kneeled in his monk’s robe. He put his forehead to the stone. The voice came again--oh, the voice! “Richard, list to me!” All heaven was speaking to him and filling him--him, him who had been so unhappy!--with joy and power. “Thou hast loved me well, and so thou hast drawn me, servant Richard, knight Richard, my poet Richard! I love all places--but now I love this place well and would do it good.” He found daring to speak. “Star of me--Bringer of me into full being--” “Thou canst not know all the counsel of heaven. I will come again, renewing thy joy. But now hearken what thou art to do, unquestioning, as thou lovest me! The morn comes. When rings the bell for lauds, when thy brethren flock into church, haste thou, haste! Stand before them. Cry, thou that lovest me. ‘This night hath the Blessed among women appeared to me, Richard Englefield!’ And she saith, ‘Speak to all of Silver Cross, and say thou for me, Of old I loved this place, and I will love it again, for I see it returning to its first strength and worship!’ Say thou, ‘I will give it room again in men’s minds. I will return and show a thing whereby multitudes shall be healed and glory shall come!’” There was pause, then “Be thou he, Richard, who loveth me well, through whom I shall speak! Morn cometh. The bell begins to ring.” The soft, the playing light withdrew. He felt her still--oh, _real_!--then in the darkness, into it, behind it as it were, she was gone. He knew that she was gone into utter light. But here was vacancy, faint moonbeams, a cell of shadows. But the comfort and the passion and the splendour were in his heart, his veins, his blood, in the potent cells of his body! With power, with success, they summoned the brain to do them service. He believed like a child, and he was the impassioned lover. He felt more than man. A great lightness and gaiety, a rest upon promise, held him one moment, and the next a longing, an agony,--and all was huge and resonant, deep, wide and high; and all was fine and small and subtle and profoundly at home! Time and space had radically changed for him. He was yet kneeling when the bell for lauds began to ring. Rising, he saw through the window the setting moon,--then he was gone.