rney, asking of all people as he went. At last
he came to the nunnery where was Queen Guenever, who saw him as she
walked in the cloister, and swooned away, so that her ladies had work
enough to keep her from falling. When she could speak, she said,--

"Ye marvel why I am so held. Truly, it is for the sight of yonder
knight. Bid him come hither, I pray you."

And when Sir Lancelot had come, she said to him with sweet and sad
visage,--

"Sir Lancelot, through our love has all this happened, and through it my
noble lord has come to his death. As for me, I am in a way to get my
soul's health. Therefore, I pray you heartily, for all the love that
ever was between us, that you see me no more in the visage; but turn to
thy kingdom again, and keep well thy realm from war and wrack. So well
have I loved you that my heart will not serve me to see you, for through
you and me is the flower of kings and knights destroyed. Therefore, Sir
Lancelot, go to thy realm, and take there a wife, and live with her in
joy and bliss; and I beseech you heartily to pray to God for me, that I
may amend my mis-living."

"Nay, madam, I shall never take a wife," said Lancelot. "Never shall I
be false to you; but the same lot you have chosen that shall I choose."

"If you will do so, I pray that you may," said the queen. "Yet I cannot
believe but that you will turn to the world again."

"Madam," he earnestly replied, "in the quest of the Sangreal I would
have forsaken the world but for the service of your lord. If I had done
so then with all my heart, I had passed all the knights on the quest
except Galahad, my son. And had I now found you disposed to earthly
joys, I would have begged you to come into my realm. But since I find
you turned to heavenly hopes, I, too, shall take to penance, and pray
while my life lasts, if I can find any hermit, either gray or white, who
will receive me. Wherefore, madam, I pray you kiss me, and never more
shall my lips touch woman's."

"Nay," said the queen, "that shall I never do. But take you my blessing,
and leave me."

Then they parted. But hard of heart would he have been who had not wept
to see their grief; for there was lamentation as deep as though they had
been wounded with spears. The ladies bore the queen to her chamber, and
Lancelot took his horse and rode all that day and all that night in a
forest, weeping.

At last he became aware of a hermitage and a chapel that stood between
two cliffs, and t