Yet all this while there was the conflict of which I have spoken.  There was that in him, which we name the Will, which continued tense and strong, striving against despair.  Neither his mind nor his heart could help him in that Night; his mind informed him that he had sinned deadly by presumption, his heart found nowhere God to love; and all that, though he told himself that God was loveable, and adorable, and that he could not fall into hell save by his own purpose and intention.

Yet, in spite of all, and when all had failed him, his will strove against despair (which is the antichrist of humility [A curious phrase, and, I think, rather a good one.  I suspect it was originally Master Richard’s.]), though he did not recognise until afterwards that he was striving, for he thought himself lost, as I have said.

Then a little after noon, at the time when I saw his image at the door of his cell, stretching himself as if after labour or sleep, he had his release.

Now this is the one matter of which he did not tell me fully, nor would he answer when I asked him except by the words, “Secretum meum mihi.” ["My secret is mine.”] But this I know, that he saw our Lord.

And this I know, too, that with that sight his understanding came back to him, and he perceived for himself that Charity was all.  He perceived, also, that he had been striving, and amiss.  He had striven to bear his own sins, and for those few hours our Lord had permitted him to bear the weight.  He who bears heaven and earth upon His shoulders, and who bore the burden of the sins of the world in the garden and upon the rood, had allowed this sweet soul to feel the weight of his own few little sins for those few hours.

When he saw that he made haste to cast them off again upon Him who alone can carry them and live, and to cry upon His Name; and he understood in that moment, he said, as never before, something of that passion and of the meaning of those five wounds that he had adored so long in ignorance.

But what it was that he saw, and how it was that our Lord shewed Himself, whether on the rood, or as a child with the world in His hands, or as crowned with sharp-thorned roses, or who was with Him, if any were; I do not know.  It was then that he said “Secretum mihi.” And when Master Richard had said that, he added “Vere languores nostros ipse tulit; et dolores nostros ipse portavit.” ["Surely He hath borne our infirmities, and carried our sorrows” (Is. liii. 4.)]

* * * * *

He lay silent a good while after that, and I did not speak to him.  When he spoke again, it was to bring to my mind the masses that were to be said, and then he spoke of the Quinte Essence, and said that it was to be mine if I wished for it; and all other things of his were to be mine to do as I pleased with them, for he had no kin in the world.

And after he had spoken of these things the King came in timidly from the parlour, and stood by the door; I could see the pallour of his face against the hangings.