aid, "Yea, I see it."
Then Sir Lavaine said, speaking very fiercely: "What honor hath a man
who will leave his own lady for the smiles of another woman? If you do
such a thing you are dishonored as a knight and are a traitor to your
troth."

Then Sir Launcelot looked very steadily at Sir Lavaine and his face was
exceedingly white and his eyes were like to coals of fire. Anon he said:
"Messire, you speak bitter words, but you are safe from mine anger."
Then Sir Lavaine laughed, though not with mirth, and immediately he went
away from Sir Launcelot and left him where he was.

That same hour the Lady Elaine quitted the court of King Arthur, riding
thence in a closed litter so that few, saving those immediately in
attendance upon her, could know aught of what she thought or said or
did.

And yet the whole world might have seen her countenance, for it was very
calm and steadfast and without any mark of passion. And all the world
might have heard her words for those words were also without passion of
any sort. Yea, I believe that at that time her soul itself was
altogether cheerful and well-content and without any shadow of sorrow
upon it.

For once, when Sir Lavaine spoke with great anger and indignation, she
chid him for his heat, saying: "My brother, let be. What matters it?
Could you but see into the future as I gaze thereinto, you would know
that it mattereth but very little indeed that such things as this befall
a poor wayfarer in this brief valley of tears."

And at another time she said: "My poor lord, Sir Launcelot! Him do I
pity indeed, for God is like to chasten him before long, and to bend him
and to bruise him as though he were a reed that was bent and bruised so
that it may never be able to stand fully erect again. Yet even this
mattereth but little; for the span of life is but very short, and all is
in the hands of God."

So spake the Lady Elaine, very calmly and without passion or sorrow of
any sort! For, as aforesaid, I believe that even at that time her eyes
penetrated into the future and that she beheld therein what was to
befall all of them.

Thus they journeyed by easy stages for two days, what time they came out
from the mazes of the forest and into an open plain where they beheld a
fair priory of the forest set in the midst of fair and fertile fields of
corn and of rye. And the walls of the priory gleamed as white as snow in
the sunlight, and the red roofs thereof shone like flames of fire
aga