there was no longer anything by which he might communicate
with man.

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 portavi