Thither Sir Lavaine led the horses bearing between them the wounded knight, whose face, as white as the moon above, was turned upward against the sky. And when Sir Lavaine had come to the door of the chapel he smote upon it with the butt of his lance; and he smote again, and therewith the door was opened and there appeared in the doorway the figure of an aged man with a long white beard like to snow for whiteness. And that man was the hermit of the forest afore spoken of several times in these histories.
Then when that reverend hermit beheld where Sir Launcelot lay in the litter, so sorely wounded, he came to him and felt of his heart. So, perceiving him to be alive, he aided Sir Lavaine to lift the wounded man from the litter and to bear him into the hut and to lay him upon a soft and fragrant couch of leaves and moss.
At that time Sir Launcelot was in a deep swoon like as though he were dead; yet he was not dead, for after the hermit had bathed his face with strong wine, and after he had set pungent herbs to his nostrils, by and by Sir Launcelot revived so as to sigh very deep and to open his eyes. And Sir Launcelot said, "Where am I? Am I still alive?" The hermit said, "Yea, Messire." Sir Launcelot said, "I wist that maybe I was dead."
Then the hermit searched Sir Launcelot's wound and bathed it and put unguents upon it and bound it about with bandages of linen and so Sir Launcelot was put at ease. And after that Sir Launcelot fell into a deep sleep so still and profound that it was like to the slumber of a little child.
Now whilst Sir Launcelot thus slept, Sir Lavaine and the hermit walked in the moonlight upon a little lawn of grass before the door of the hermitage. By and by the hermit said to Sir Lavaine: "Sir Knight, know you who yonder knight is whom you brought hither to-night?" and Sir Lavaine said, "Nay, I know not, save that he calleth himself le Chevalier Malfait."
The hermit declareth Sir Launcelot's name.
"Well," quoth the hermit, "God knows that all we who live upon His earth may easily do ill in His sight; yet I dare to say that that yonder knight hath done as little ill as any of us. Sir, you must know that he is none other than Sir Launcelot of the Lake."
At this Sir Lavaine cried out aloud in great wonder, saying: "What is it that you tell me! Lo! This knight hath dwelt at the court of my father, King Pelles of Corbin, for more than a year yet no one there wist that it was Sir Launcelot of the Lake whom we entertained in our midst."
"And yet," quoth the hermit, "that wounded man is none other than he."