said I. 'In what semblance is he?'

"What wilt thou, my friend? Straightway she fell to making
a picture of thee in words; so that I knew that she had met thee,
and belike after I had departed from thee, and my heart
was sore thereat; for now I will tell thee the very truth,
that she was a young woman and exceeding fair, as if she were
of pearl all over, and as sweet as eglantine; and I feared
her lest she should meet thee again in these wildwoods.
And so I asked her what would she, and she said that she had a mind
to seek to the Well at the World's End, which quencheth all sorrow;
and I rejoiced thereat, thinking that she would be far away from thee,
not thinking that thou and I must even meet to seek to it also.
So I gave her the chaplet which my witch-mistress took from
the dead woman's neck; and went with her into the wildwood,
and taught her wisdom of the way and what she was to do.
And again I say to thee that she was so sweet and yet with a kind
of pity in her both of soul and body, and wise withal and quiet,
that I feared her, though I loved her; yea and still do:
for I deem her better than me, and meeter for thee and thy love
than I be.--Dost thou know her?"

"Yea," said Ralph, "and fair and lovely she is in sooth.
Yet hast thou naught to do to fear her. And true it is that I
saw her and spake with her after thou hadst ridden away.
For she came by the want-ways of the Wood Perilous in the dawn
of the day after I had delivered thee; and in sooth she told
me that she looked either for Death, or the Water of the Well
to end her sorrow."