he remembered them by then his raiment was on him in the morning.
But that night him-seemed that he awoke in his chamber at Whitwall,
and was lying on his bed, as he verily was, and the door of the
chamber opened, and there entered quietly the Lady of the Woodland,
dight even as he had seen her as she lay dead beside their cooking fire
on that table of greensward in the wilderness, barefoot and garlanded
about her brow and her girdlestead, but fair and fresh coloured
as she was before the sword had pierced her side; and he thought
that he rejoiced to see her, but no wild hope rose in his heart,
and no sobbing passion blinded his eyes, nor did he stretch
out hand to touch her, because he remembered that she was dead.
But he thought she spake to him and said: "I know that thou wouldst
have me speak, therefore I say that I am come to bid thee farewell,
since there was no farewell between us in the wilderness, and I know
that thou are about going on a long and hard and perilous journey:
and I would that I could kiss thee and embrace thee, but I may not,
for this is but the image of me as thou hast known me. Furthermore, as I
loved thee when I saw thee first, for thy youth, and thy fairness,
and thy kindness and thy valiancy, so now I rejoice that all this
shall endure so long in thee, as it surely shall."

Then the voice ceased, but still the image stood before him awhile,
and he wondered if she would speak again, and tell him aught
of the way to the Well at the World's End; and she spake again:
"Nay," she said, "I cannot, since we may not tread the way together
hand in hand; and this is part of the loss that thou hast had of me;
and oh! but it is hard and hard." And her face became sad and distressful,
and she turned and departed as she had come.

Then he knew not if he awoke, or if it were a change in his dream;