“Friend, well-beloved for ever!  This fair young knight looked on me, and as he looked, his face flushed as red as mine did even now.  And I tell thee that my heart danced with joy as I looked on him, and he spake not for a little while, and then he said:  ’Fair maiden, canst thou tell me of any who will tell me a word of the way to the Well at the World’s End?’ I said to him, ’Nay, I have heard the word once and no more, I know not the way:  and I am sorry that I cannot do for thee that which thou wouldest.’  And then I spake again, and told him that he should by no means stop at our house, and I told him what it was like, so that he might give it the go by.  I said, ’Even if thou hast to turn back again, and fail to find the thing thou seekest, yet I beseech thee ride not into that trap.’

“He sat still on his saddle a while, staring at me and I at him; and then he thanked me, but with so bad a grace, that I wondered of him if he were angry; and then he shook his rein, and rode off briskly, and I looked after him a while, and then went on my way; but I had gone but a short while, when I heard horse-hoofs behind me, and I turned and looked, and lo! it was the knight coming back again.  So I stayed and abided him; and when he came up to me, he leapt from his horse and stood before me and said:  ’I must needs see thee once again.’

“I stood and trembled before him, and longed to touch him.  And again he spake, breathlessly, as one who has been running:  ’I must depart, for I have a thing to do that I must do; but I long sorely to touch thee, and kiss thee; yet unless thou freely willest it, I will refrain me.’  Then I looked at him and said, ‘I will it freely.’  Then he came close up to me, and put his hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek; but I kissed his lips, and then he took me in his arms, and kissed me and embraced me; and there in that place, and in a little while, we loved each other sorely.

“But in a while he said to me:  ’I must depart, for I am as one whom the Avenger of Blood followeth; and now I will give thee this, not so much as a gift, but as a token that we have met in the wilderness, thou and I.’  Therewith he put his hand to his neck, and took from it this necklace which thou seest here, and I saw that it was like that which my mistress took from the neck of the dead woman.  And no less is it like to the one that thou wearest, Ralph.

“I took it in my hand and wept that I might not help him.  And he said:  ’It is little likely that we shall meet again; but by the token of this collar thou mayest wot that I ever long for thee till I die:  for though I am a king’s son, this is the dearest of my possessions.’  I said:  ’Thou art young, and I am young; mayhappen we shall meet again:  but thou shalt know that I am but a thrall, a goatherd.’  For I knew by what the old woman told me of somewhat of the mightiness of the kings of the world.  ‘Yea,’ he said, and smiled most sweetly, ’that is easy to be seen:  yet if I live, as I think not to do, thou shalt sit where great men shall kneel to thee; not as I kneel now for love, and that I may kiss thy knees and thy feet, but because they needs must worship thee.’