So it came about that peace was made betwixt Sir Tristram and King Mark, and Belle Isoult and King Mark, and King Arthur was the peacemaker.

[Sidenote:  Belle Isoult scorns King Mark] Thereafter Sir Tristram and his court and the Lady Belle Isoult returned unto Cornwall, and there they dwelt for some time in seeming peace.  But in that time the Lady Belle Isoult would never see King Mark nor exchange a word with him, but lived entirely apart from him and in her own life in a part of the castle; and at that King Mark was struck with such bitterness of despair that he was like to a demon in torment.  For he saw, as it were, a treasure very near and yet afar, for he could not come unto it.  And the more he suffered that torment, the more he hated Sir Tristram, for in his suffering it appeared to him that Sir Tristram was the cause of that suffering.

So it came about that King Mark set spies to watch Sir Tristram, for in his evil heart he suspected Sir Tristram of treason, and he hoped that his spies might discover Sir Tristram in some act for which he might be punished.  So those spies watched Sir Tristram both night and day, but they could find nothing that he did that was amiss.

Now one day Belle Isoult felt such a longing for Sir Tristram that she could not refrain from sending a note to him beseeching him for to come to her so that they might see one another again; and though Sir Tristram misdoubted what he did, yet he went as she desired, even if it should mean the peril of death to him.

Then came those spies to King Mark and told him that Sir Tristram was gone to the bower of the Lady Belle Isoult, and that she had bidden him to come thither.

At that the vitals of King Mark were twisted with such an agony of hatred and despair that he bent him double and cried out, “Woe!  Woe!  I suffer torments!”

[Sidenote:  King Mark spies upon Sir Tristram and Isoult] Therewith he arose and went very quickly to that part of the castle where the Lady Belle Isoult inhabited; and he went very softly up by a back way and through a passage to where was a door with curtains hanging before it; and when he had come there he parted the curtains and peeped within.  And he beheld that the Lady Belle Isoult and Sir Tristram sat at a game of chess, and he beheld that they played not at the game but that they sat talking together very sadly; and he beheld that Dame Bragwaine sat in a deep window to one side—­for Belle Isoult did not wish it to be said that she and Sir Tristram sat alone.

All this King Mark saw and trembled with a torment of jealousy.  So by and by he left that place and went very quietly back into that passageway whence he had come.  And when he had come there he perceived a great glaive upon a pole two ells long.  This he took into his hand and returned unto that curtained doorway again.

Then being in all ways prepared he parted the curtains silently and stepped very quickly and without noise into the room.  And the back of Sir Tristram was toward him.