‘He has forgotten me, and will stay here always with the Lady Ettarde,’ muttered Sir Pelleas in scorn, and he drew the sword he had won at the tournament, to slay the false knight Sir Gawaine.
Then, all at once, he remembered the vows he had taken, when the great King had knighted him, and slowly he sheathed his sword, and went gloomily down to the river.
But Sir Pelleas could not make up his mind to go away, and again he turned and went back to the tent, where Sir Gawaine lay, still asleep.
Once more Sir Pelleas drew his sword, and laid it across the false knight’s bare neck.
When Sir Gawaine woke in the morning, he felt the cold steel, and putting up his hand, he found the sword that Sir Pelleas had left.
Sir Gawaine did not know how the sword had come there, but when he told the Lady Ettarde what had happened, and showed her the sword, she knew it was the one that Sir Pelleas had won at the tournament, when he had given her the golden circlet.
‘You have not slain the knight who loved me,’ cried the Lady Ettarde, ‘for he has been here, and left his sword across your throat.’ And then she hated Gawaine because he had told her a lie, and she drove him from her castle.
And the Lady Ettarde thought of her true knight Sir Pelleas, and at last she loved him with all her heart.
But when he had left his sword across Sir Gawaine’s throat, Pelleas had gone sadly back to his tent, and taking off his armour, had lain down to die.
Then the knight’s servant was in great distress, because his master would neither eat nor sleep, but lay in his tent getting more pale and more thin day by day. And the servant was wandering sadly along the bank of the river, wondering how he could help his master, when he met a beautiful maiden called the ‘Lady of the Lake.’