"All this she made her father promise to do. Then she told him what to write for her in the letter, and a little while after that she died. And her father did all that he had promised.
"One day King Arthur and Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot stood at a window of the palace at Westminster, looking out upon the Thames. And there they saw a little boat, all covered over with black and purple silk, and with only one man to row it. And the boat came straight on till it touched the shore near the palace. 'It is a strange-looking boat,' said the King; 'let us go down and see what it is.'
"So they all went down and looked into the boat, and there they saw the dead Elaine, lying on a couch covered with silk and cloth of gold. Then the Queen saw the letter in her hand and took it and opened it and saw that it was to Lancelot. But when she gave it to him Lancelot gave it to the King and asked him to read it. And the letter said? 'To the best knight of the world, Sir Lancelot of the Lake: I who bring you this letter was Elaine of Astolat. I have died, Sir Lancelot, because you could not love me. Now I beg that you will pray for my soul and will bury me as I ought to be buried.'
"When the King had read this letter none of them spoke at first. Then the Queen said: 'Lancelot, could you not do her some little kindness, to make her sorrow less, so that she might live?'
"'She would have nothing but my love,' said Lancelot. 'I could not give her that if I would, for true love, such as she should have had, must come of itself, and cannot be compelled.'
"So the next day Elaine was buried as if she had been a queen, and Lancelot and the King and the Queen and the knights of the Round Table were there to see it done. And the boat that had brought her down the river went back up the river toward Astolat."
Stonehenge
CHAPTER VII
THE GIANTS' DANCE