lanchefleur, whom he
had left there.

'Fleur,' said the mother, 'I know not where she is.'

'Mock me not,' cried he, 'but say where is she whom for these three long
weeks I have not seen?'

Then said the lady, 'Blanchefleur is dead and buried.'

At these words spoken Fleur fell stunned and senseless as though from a
heavy blow, and the mother in her terror gave a cry, which, being heard
throughout the court, brought the King and Queen running in, to behold
with horror and dismay their child stretched lifeless on the ground.

When at length Fleur came to himself, neither prayers nor threats
availed to calm the violence of his grief, but when he begged to see his
beloved's tomb, the Queen his mother led him by the hand to the vault
where she was supposed to lie; and, when Fleur read the golden letters
that told how Blanchefleur lay within the tomb, he thrice fell fainting
on it, and when at length his spirit came again, he cried, kneeling upon
the tomb, 'Alas, my Blanchefleur! why have you forsaken me? We who lived
and loved, should we not have died together? Woe, woe is me thus left
without my love; Oh, cruel Death, to take my dear away! Why tarry now?
come, take my life, or I myself will take it, and so pass to those
bright fields of light where dwells the soul of Blanchefleur amid the
flowers!'

After this lament Fleur arose, and drawing a golden stilus from its
case, he said, 'This stilus, her parting gift, and all now left to me
of Blanchefleur, shall be my comfort by taking me from a world in which
without her I cannot bear to live.' So saying, Fleur would have stabbed
himself to the heart with the golden stilus, but the Queen his mother
tore it from his hand, crying: 'What madness were it to lose your life
for love! Be well assured that never thus could you come to Blanchefleur
in her flowery meads; rather would you be sent to dwell in eternal grief
and pain with Pyramus and Thisbe, who for a like offence were condemned
to seek forever the comfort that they shall never find in love: take
heart, therefore, my child, for I have skill to call your Blanchefleur
back to life.'

[Illustration]

After these words spoken to Fleur, the Queen, in sore trouble of spirit,
sought her lord the King, and showing to him the golden stilus, said,
'Sir, take pity on your child, for with this golden stilus he had done
himself to death but for my staying hand; and, sir, were he, our only
child, to die, bethink you how grievou