uccor."

* * * * *

So it was that Sir Launcelot escaped from the cell of the hermit a
second time. And now it remaineth to be told how he returned to Corbin
and to the Lady Elaine the Fair, and how the Lady Elaine cherished him
and brought him back to health and strength and comeliness again. So I
pray you to read that which followeth if you would fain learn concerning
those things.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: The Lady Elaine the Fair knoweth Sir Launcelot:]

[Illustration]

Chapter Third

_How Sir Launcelot returned to Corbin again and how the Lady Elaine the
Fair cherished him and brought him back to health. Also how Sir
Launcelot with the Lady Elaine withdrew to Joyous Isle._

So Sir Launcelot escaped from the cell of the hermit as aforetold. And
he lay hidden in the thickets all that day till the night had come. And
when the night had come he arose and turned his face toward the eastward
and thitherward he made his way.

[Sidenote: _How Sir Launcelot returneth to Corbin._]

For death was very close to Sir Launcelot and there was but one thought
in his mind and that thought was to return to Corbin. For even through
his clouds of madness, Sir Launcelot wist that there at Corbin a great
love awaited him and that if he might reach that place he might there
have rest and peace; wherefore in this time of weakness and of pain, he
willed to return to that place once more.

So Sir Launcelot made his way toward Corbin, and he travelled
thitherward several days and God alone knows how he did so. And one
morning at the breaking of the day he came to the town of Corbin, and he
entered the town by a postern gate he knew of old. And after he had
entered the town he made his way slowly and with great pain up through
the streets of the town and the town was still asleep. So he came unseen
to the market-place of Corbin where he had aforetime slain the Worm of
Corbin as aforetold, and there sat him down upon that slab of stone
beneath which the Worm had made its habitation. And why he came there
who shall say except that maybe there lay very dimly within his mind
some remembrance that here he had one time had great honor and glory of
knighthood.

[Sidenote: _The people behold the madman._]

So there he sat, and when the people of the town awoke they beheld
sitting there in the midst of that market-place one all naked and
famished who gazed about him with wild and terrified l