Then came Sir Bernard unto the knight and said, lifting his grey head and wrinkled and reverend face to Sir Lancelot as he bestrode his horse:
'Sir, I think my daughter Elaine will die for your sake. For ever was she quiet, but strong in mood and of a very fond heart.'
'It must not be,' said Sir Lancelot, 'but do thou cheer her, and when I am gone she will forget me. Never did I do or say aught but what a good knight should, and never made as if I cared for her. But I am right sorry for her distress, for she is a full fair maid, good and gentle, and sweet of voice and mood.'
'Father,' said Sir Lavaine, 'my sister Elaine doeth as I do. For since I first saw my lord Lancelot, I could never depart from him, nor never will if I may follow him.'
Night and day did the fair maid Elaine sorrow in silence, so that she never slept, ate or drank. At the end of ten days her ghostly father bade her leave such grief and change her thoughts.
'Nay,' she said, 'I may not, and I would not if I could. And I do no sin to love the most peerless knight in all the world, the most gentle and courteous of men, and the greatest in all nobility. Therefore, as I know I may not live, do thou shrive me, good father, for I must needs pass out of this world.'
Then she confessed her sins and was shriven. And anon she called her father and her brother, Sir Tirre, and begged that they would do as she desired as to her burial, and they promised.
In a little while she died, and a letter was put into her cold hand, and she was placed in a fair bed, with all the richest clothes she had about her. Then they carried her on the bed in a chariot, slowly, with many prayers and with much weeping, to the Thames, and there they put her and the bed in a barge.
Over all the bed and the barge, except her fair face, was placed a cloak of black samite, and an old and faithful servant of the house stepped into the barge to guide it.
They let it go from them with great grief, and the aged man steered it down the river towards London, where was the court of Arthur.