ark of the third
night a beautiful Child, crowned with roses and bearing in his hand a
rose, had come to the dying thane and said: "Now mayest thou see that
the best the world can give--call it by what name thou wilt and prize
it at its utmost worth--is nothing more than these: wind and smoke and
a dream and a flower. But though all have fled from thee and left thee
to die alone in grievous plight, this night thou shalt not die."

Then he was bidden to rise on the morrow--"for strength shall be given
thee," said the Child--and travel with the sun westward till he came to
the Abbey of Egwin, and there he must tell the Abbot all that had
befallen him.

"And the good Abbot will receive thee among his sons," said the Child;
"and after that, in a little while, thou shalt go on a journey, and
then again in a little while shalt come to me."

On the morrow Rheinfrid the thane rose from his bed hale and strong,
but his whole nature was changed; and he made no more account of life
and of all that makes life sweet--as honour and wealth and joy and use
and the love of man and woman--than one makes of wind and smoke and a
dream and a flower; and all that he greatly desired was to undertake
the journey which had been foretold, and to see once more the Child of
the Roses.

Westward he rode with the sun and came at nightfall to the Abbey of
Eovesholme; and there he told Agelwyn the Abbot the story of his wild
life and his sickness and the service that had been laid upon him.

The Abbot embraced him, saying, "Son, welcome art thou to our house,
and thy home shall it be till the time comes for thy journey."

For a whole year Rheinfrid was a novice in the house, and when the year
had gone by he took the vows. In the presence of the brotherhood he
cast himself on the pavement before the high altar, and the pall of the
dead was laid over him, and the monks sang the dirge of the dead, for
now he was indeed dying to this world. And from his head they cut the
long hair, and clothed him in the habit of a monk, and henceforth he
was done with all earthly things and was one of themselves.

"Surely, now," he thought, "the time of my journey draws near." But
one year and a second and yet a third passed away, and there came to
him no call, and he grew wearied with waiting, and weariness begot
sullenness and discontent, and he questioned himself: "Was it not a
dream of sickness which deceived me? An illusion of pain and darkness?
Why sho