So
the Lady of the Lake vanished away, and everything behind her where she had
stood was clear and bright, and she was gone.
Then Queen Helen fell down in a swoon, and lay beside the lake of the
meadow like one that is dead; and when Foliot came he found her so and wist
not what to do for her. There was his lord who was dead and his lady who
was so like to death that he knew not whether she was dead or no. So he
knew not what to do but sat down and made great lamentation for a long
while.
[Sidenote: The Lady Helen taketh to a Nunnery] What time he sat thus there
came that way three nuns who dwelt in an abbey of nuns which was not a
great distance away from that place. These made great pity over that
sorrowful sight, and they took away from there the dead King and the woeful
Queen, and the King they buried in holy ground, and the Queen they let live
with them and she was thereafter known as the "Sister of Sorrows."
[Sidenote: How Launcelot dwelt in the lake] Now Launcelot dwelt for nigh
seventeen years with the Lady Nymue of the Lake in that wonderful,
beautiful valley covered over with the appearance of such a magical lake as
hath been aforetime described in the Book of King Arthur.
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