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. CHAPTER XII Silver Cross went in procession. The Abbot with the Prior of Westforest walked ahead and there followed chanting monks. Then came lay Brothers and villagers and a quarter of the countryside and a half-score from Middle Forest. The Lord of Montjoy walked. Bright was the morning, high and crisp; white frost on ground. Rounding the hill they cried, “The fir tree!” They knew not how it was, but the tree, the first confirmation, seemed to spring before them, magical, mighty, a veritable tree of life. Many may have noted it before, through the years, standing like a sentinel before the hill, and thought only, “A great tree, with good shade for shepherds in hot summer tide!” But now marvel clothed it. The wind began to play through the stretched wires of Imagination. The harp was sounding. It was the Prior of Westforest who cried, “Lo, the fallen earth! Not touched from without, but pushed from within!” It lay in truth, sod, earth and rock, to right and left, as though Might would come forth and had done so. The procession broke from column into a throng as of bees, eyes toward their queen. There was the opening into the hill like a door with a great stone for lintel. The Abbot spoke to the monk Richard. “Read thou!” A breath of assent ran like wind through wheat. “Aye, aye, the one she came to!”