Bearing the casket with the veil and phial therein, Rosamunde passed out
of the chapel of Holy Guard, down many a gallery and winding stair, to
the room where Tristan slept. The look of awe still possessed her face,
filling her eyes with solemn shadows, loosening the curves of her proud
mouth. The lamp’s light played upon her hair as the west wind swayed it
to and fro like golden threads upon the cloak of night.
Coming once more to the Abbess’s room, she found Tristan sleeping even
as she had left him. A faint grey haze hung in the east, for the dawn
was coming up over the woods and the waters of the Gloire. Rosamunde set
the lamp on the sconce in the wall, and laid the casket on the great
carved chair. With a rush of tenderness, she stooped and looked into
Tristan’s face, hung over him with arms outstretched, as though her
whole soul gave him its blessing.
Then, with her face towards the east, she knelt down by the window, her
hands folded upon her breast. Out of the night she had struggled to meet
the broadening glory of the dawn. Never before had Rosamunde prayed as
she prayed that hour in Holy Guard. Her soul seemed borne on wings of
fire upwards, ever upwards, till the heavy world grew bright in the
beams of the rising sun. Ever she seemed to strive with God, and in the
strife her own weak faith caught a trebled courage from her prayers.
Once more the welkin seemed to wake to the deep mysteries of life and
love. The woods grew green, the waters shone, the clouds gleamed white
against the blue. The voice of the dawn rang loud and clear, bidding the
phantoms of the night depart.
A new light shone on Rosamunde’s face, as though hope was reborn within
her heart. She rose up from before the eastern window, took the casket
in her hands, and knelt down at the side of Tristan’s bed. She smiled as
she turned the coverlet aside, and began to cut the linen bands stained
with the blood that still ebbed through. So deep was the man’s sleep
that he slumbered on till she turned the last band from the clotted
wound and saw the red stream oozing up.
Then Tristan awoke. His hands moved restlessly to and fro, and
Rosamunde, bending over his body, caught them and held them fast in
hers.
“Tristan,” she said, with her splendid hair falling around his haggard
face.
His eyes questioned hers with a strange wistfulness, and he breathed
deeply, but did not speak.
“Tristan,” she said again, with her mouth close to him, as he lay and
looked at her like a child, “I have dreamed a dream, and God has given
me back your life. This I believe, for my faith has returned.”
“Rosamunde,” he said, with a great sigh.
“Lie still,” she whispered, “while I dress your wound with the gifts God
has given me in the night.”
“God?” he asked her.
“Even so,” she answered, “for as I slept the Christ appeared and bade me
believe, and in my dream he showed me the place in the chapel above us
where relics were buried. Yet, if this dream fails me at this hour, I
shall never believe in Heaven more.”
Therewith she kissed him on the lips, with tears brimming in her eyes.
Tristan watched her silently as she took the phial and poured the red
liquid into the wound. Mingling there with the living blood, it sent
forth an odour through the room as though all the spices of the East,
spikenard and myrrh and wondrous balms, had spent their perfumes on the
air. Then Rosamunde took the mystic veil, and pressed it deep into the
wound, where it grew red with Tristan’s blood.
Leaning back against the chair, she half sat, half knelt beside the bed,
watching the man with all her soul. The streaming sunlight flooded in,
playing upon Tristan’s face with its hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. In
either heart was poised the chance of life and death that summer dawn.
Very slowly the minutes passed, as though Time halted in his stride. The
lamp had burnt out on the wall, and birds were awake in the thickets
beneath, their shrill orisons greeting the dawn. Rosamunde, filled with
unrest, watched no longer beside the bed, but rose and paced from wall
to wall, gazing out through the ruined window at the Gloire gleaming
amid the woods. For the moment she dared not look at Tristan, lest the
last hope should prove but a dream. A cold hand seemed on her bosom,
pressing heavily on her heart, while the distant clamour of the sea came
like a dirge into her ears.
Suddenly Tristan called to her, his voice strong and resonant as of old,
not the half moan of a dying man.
“Hither, Rosamunde,” he said; “come to me. What miracle is this?”
She turned instantly and was at his side, bending over him with her eyes
afire. And lo, the blood had ceased to flow, and the red veil seemed
clotted fast over the place where the barb was buried. There was a faint
colour on Tristan’s cheeks, and his eyes had the lustre they had lost of
late. Rosamunde knelt and gazed at his face, as though half fearful of
trusting the truth.
Then with a low cry she bowed her head, and laid her hands on the man’s
shoulders.
“Tristan, you will live,” she said.
“There is strange strength in me.”
“The dream, the dream!”
“No longer does the warm blood ebb.”
She raised herself from Tristan’s body and knelt with arms stretched
towards the east, a great glory lighting her face.