and thy going are henceforth of no moment to
me."

Then Sir Launcelot's heart was filled to bursting with bitterness and
despair, and he cried out aloud: "Lady, thou beholdest me a miserable
man. For I have left all my duty and all my service and all my hope of
peace and happiness and have come to thee. Hast thou not then some word
of kindness for me?"

But the Queen only hardened her heart and would not answer.

Then Sir Launcelot cried out in great despair: "Alas! what is there then
left for me? Lo! I have cast away from me all my hope of peace and now
even thy friendship is withdrawn from me. Nothing then is left to me and
my life is dead."

[Sidenote: _The Queen is angry._]

Then Queen Guinevere's eyes flashed like fire, and she cried out: "Sir
Knight, you speak I know not what. Now I bid you tell me this--is it
true that you wore as a favor the sleeve of the Lady Elaine the Fair at
the tournament of Astolat?"

Sir Launcelot said, "Yes, it is true."

Then the Lady Queen Guinevere laughed with flaming cheeks and she said:
"Well, Sir Knight I see that you are not very well learned in knighthood
not to know that it is both unknightly and dishonorable for a knight to
sware faith to one lady and to wear the favor of another. Yet what else
than that may be expected of one who knoweth so little of the duties and
of the obligations of knighthood that he will ride errant in a hangman's
cart?"

So spake Queen Guinevere in haste not knowing what she said, her words
being driven onwards by her passion as feathers are blown by a tempest
over which they have no control. But when she had spoken those words she
was terrified at what she had said and would have recalled them. But she
could not do that, for who can recall the spoken word after it is
uttered? Wherefore, after she had spoken those words she could do
nothing but gaze into Sir Launcelot's face in a sort of terror. And as
she thus gazed she beheld that his face became red and redder until it
became all empurpled as though the veins of his head would burst. And
she beheld that his eyes started as though from his head and that they
became shot with blood. And she beheld that he clutched at his throat as
though he were choking. And he strove to speak but at first he could not
and then he cried out in a harsh and choking voice, "Say you so!" and
then again in the same voice he cried, "Say you so!"

[Sidenote: _Sir Launcelot leapeth from the window._]

Therewith