ph no less. In the house, moreover, was a fair ark
wherein they kept matters which had belonged to the Lady, as her shoes
and her smock, wrapped in goodly cloth amidst well-smelling herbs; and
these things they worshipped as folk do with relics of the saints. In
another ark also they showed the seekers a book wherein was written
lore concerning the Well, and the way thereto. But of this book had
the Sage forewarned Ralph and his mate, and had bidden them look to it
that they should read in it, and no otherwhere than at that ancient
altar in the wood, they two alone, and clad in such-like gear as they
wore when they hearkened to his reading by his hermitage. And so it
was that they found the due raiment in the ark along with the book.
Therefore day after day betimes in the morning they bore the said book
to the altar and read therein, till they had learned much wisdom.

Thus they did for eight days, and on the ninth they rested and were
merry with their hosts: but on the tenth day they mounted their horses
and said farewell, and departed by the ways they had learned of, they
two alone. And they had with them bread and meal, as much as they
might bear, and water-skins moreover, that they might fill them at the
last sweet water before they came to the waterless desert.

CHAPTER 17

They Come Through the Woodland to the Thirsty Desert

So they ride their ways, and when they were come well into the wildwood
past the house, and had spoken but few words to each other, Ralph put
forth his hand, and stayed Ursula, and they gat off their horses under
a great-limbed oak, and did off their armour, and sat down on the
greensward there, and loved each other dearly, and wept for joy of
their pain and travail and love. And afterwards, as they sat side by
side leaning up against the great oak-bole, Ralph spake and said: "Now
are we two once again all alone in the uttermost parts of the earth,
and belike we are not very far from the Well at the World's End; and
now I have bethought me that if we gain that which we seek for, and
bear back our lives to our own people, the day may come when we are
grown old, for as young as we may seem, that we shall be as lonely then
as we are this hour, and that the folk round about us shall be to us as
much and no more than these trees and the wild things that dwell
amongst them."

She looked on him and laughed as one over-happy, and said: "Thou
runnest forward swiftly to meet trouble,