He struck the lovely face of Gwendolaine,
And went out cursing.

Motionless she leaned
Against the window mullion, where she reeled,
White as the pearls she wore; and love for Torm--
The thing that she had nourished and called love--
Fell dead within her, murdered by his blow.
And in her heart true love arose at last
for Sir Sanpeur, proclaiming need of him;--
A love, for many days hushed and suppressed
By wifely loyalty, now well awake,
With conscious sense of immortality.

Half dazed, she swiftly to her chamber went,
Stopped not to wipe the blood from her pale cheek;
Dropped off, in haste, her brilliant robe, and donned
A russet gown she kept for merry plays,
And, wrapping o'er her head a wimple, dark
As her dark gown, crept down the castle steps.
The vassals looked at her askance; she drew
Her wimple closer, and deceived their gaze,
Until the gate of Tormalot was passed,
And she was out upon the lonely moor.
Onward she went, too wrenched with pain and wrath
To fear, or wonder at her fearlessness.

The knight Sanpeur was on his battlements,
Silvered with light from the full summer moon,
And heard his seneschal with loud replies