The King bade Master Richard stand up, and himself and my lord sat down in the two chairs beside one another, so that half their faces were in shadow and half in light.  Master Richard saw again that the King looked somewhat sick, and very melancholy.

Then the King addressed himself to Master Richard, speaking softly, but with an appearance of observing him very closely.  My lord, too, watched him, folding his hands in his lap.

“Now tell me, sir,” said the King, “what is this tidings that you bear?”

Master Richard was a little dismayed at my lord’s coming:  he had thought it was to be in private.

“It was to your ear alone, your grace, that I was bidden to deliver the message,” he said.

“My lord here is ears and eyes to me,” said the King, a little stiffly, and my lord smiled to hear him, and laid his hand on the King’s knee.

That was answer enough for the holy youth, who was attendant only for God’s will; so he began straightway, and told the King of his contemplation of eight days before, and of the dryness that fell on him when he strove to put away his thoughts, and of his words with me who was his priest, and his coming to London and an the rest.  Then he told him of how he heard mass at saint Edward’s altar, and how at the elevation of the sacring our Lord had told him what tidings he was to take.

The King observed him very closely, leaning his head on his hand and his elbow on the table, and my lord, who had begun by playing with his chain, ceased, and watched him too.

Master Richard told me that there was a great silence everywhere when he had come to the matter of saint Edward’s altar; it was such an exterior silence as is the interior silence that came to him in contemplation.  There appeared no movement anywhere, neither in the room, nor the palace, nor the world, nor in the three hearts that were beating there.  There was only the great presence of God’s Majesty enfolding all.

When he ceased speaking, the King stared on him for a full minute without any words, then he took his arm off the table and clasped his hands.

“And what was it that our Lord said to you, sir?” he asked softly, and leaned forward to listen.

Master Richard looked on the sick eyes, and then at the ruddy prelate’s face that seemed very stern beside it.  But he dared not be silent now.

“It is this, your grace, that our Lord shewed to me,” he began slowly, “that your grace is not as other men are, neither in soul nor in life.  You walk apart from all, even as our Saviour Christ did, when He was upon earth.  When you speak, men do not understand you; they take it amiss.  They would have you make your kingdom to be of this world, and God will not have it so. Regnum Dei intra te est. [’The kingdom of God is within thee’ (from Luke xvii. 21.)] It is that kingdom which shall be yours.  But to gain that kingdom you must suffer a passion, such as that which Jesu