"
Therewith he turned away suddenly, and rode smartly towards
his church; and Ralph deemed that he was weeping once more.
As for Ralph, he went quietly home toward the castle,
for the sun was setting now, and as he went he pondered all
these things in his heart.
CHAPTER 21
Ralph Weareth Away Three Days Uneasily
He read again in the book that night, till he had gotten the whole tale
into his head, and he specially noted this of it, that it told not whence
that Lady came, nor what she was, nor aught else save that there she
was in the wood by herself, and was found therein by the king's son:
neither told the tale in what year of the world she was found there,
though it told concerning all the war and miseries which she had bred,
and which long endured. Again, he could not gather from that book
why she had gone back to the lone place in the woods, whereas she
might have wedded one of those warring barons who sorely desired her:
nor why she had yielded herself to the witch of that place and endured
with patience her thralldom, with stripes and torments of her body,
like the worst of the thralls of the ancient heathen men.
Lastly, he might not learn from the book where in the world was that
lone place, or aught of the road to the Well at the World's End.
But amidst all his thinking his heart came back to this:
"When I meet her, she will tell me of it all; I need be no wiser
than to learn how to meet her and to make her love me; then shall
she show me the way to the Well at the World's End, and I shall
drink thereof and never grow old, even as she endureth in youth,
and she shall love me for ever, and I her for ever.
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