know the message that your soul bears to the King."

Master Richard came out of his heavenly swoon then, and saw the face
close to his own, and what he said of it to me I dare not tell you, but
he bitterly reproached himself that he had ever doubted whether this
were a man of God or no.

As he turned his own face this way and that, that the failing light
might fall upon it, he said that beneath him in the little street there
was a crowd assembled, all silent and watching the heavenly colloquy.

When he looked again, questioning, at the holy old man, he saw that the
other's face was puckered with thought and that his lips pouted through
the long-falling hair. Then it disappeared, and a grunting voice came
out of the dark, but the sound of it was as if the old man wept.

"I do not know the message, brother. Our Lord has not shewed it to me,
but He has shewed me this--that soon you will not need to wear His
wounds. That I have to say. _Oremus pro invicem._" ["Let us pray for one
another."]

* * * * *

The crowd pressed close upon Master Richard as he came down from the
window, and, going in the midst of them in silence, he came to saint
Peter's gate where the black monks dwell, and was admitted by the
porter.