Then was she silent awhile, and then spake:  “Yet must I needs say that I would that thine home were in Goldburg.”

He smiled sadly and looked on her, but with no astonishment, and indeed he still scarce thought of her as he said:  “Lady and Queen, thou art good to me beyond measure.  Yet, look you!  One home I had, and left it; another I looked to have, and I lost it; and now I have no home.  Maybe in days to come I shall go back to mine old home; and whiles I wonder with what eyes it will look on me.  For merry is that land, and dear; and I have become sorrowful.”

“Fear not,” she said; “I say again that in thine home shall all things look kindly on thee.”

Once more she sat silent, and no word did his heart bid him speak.  Then she sighed and said:  “Fair lord, I bid thee come and go in this house as thou wilt; but whereas there are many folk who must needs see me, and many things are appointed for me to do, therefore I pray thee to come hither in three days’ space, and meanwhile I will look to the matter of thy search, that I may speed thee on the way to Utterness, which is no great way from Utterbol, and is the last town whereof we know aught.  And I will write a letter for thee to give to the lord of Utterbol, which he will heed, if he heedeth aught my good-will or enmity.  I beseech thee come for it in three days wearing.”

Therewith she arose and took his hand and led him to the door, and he departed, blessing her goodness, and wondering at her courtesy and gentle speech.

For those three days he was still seeking tidings everywhere, till folk began to know of him far and wide, and to talk of him.  And at the time appointed he went to the Queen’s House and was brought to her chamber as before, and she was alone therein.  She greeted him and smiled on him exceeding kindly, but he might not fail to note of her that she looked sad and her face was worn by sorrow.  She bade him sit beside her, and said:  “Hast thou any tidings of the woman whom thou seekest?” “Nay, nay,” said he, “and now I am minded to carry on the search out-a-gates.  I have some good friends who will go with me awhile.  But thou, Lady, hast thou heard aught?”

“Naught of the damsel,” she said.  “But there is something else.  As Clement told me, thou seekest the Well at the World’s End, and through Utterness and by Utterbol is a way whereby folk seek thither.  Mayst thou find it, and may it profit thee more than it did my kinsman of old, who first raised up Goldburg in the wilderness.  Whereas for him was naught but strife and confusion, till he was slain in a quarrel, wherein to fail was to fail, and to win the day was to win shame and misery.”

She looked on him sweetly and said:  “Thou art nowise such as he; and if thou drink of the Well, thou wilt go back to Upmeads, and thy father and mother, and thine own folk and thine home.  But now here is the letter which thou shalt give to the Lord of Utterbol if thou meet him; and mayhappen he is naught so evil a man as the tale of him runs.”