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Updated: June 6, 2025
'It astounds me also, said the countess reproachfully, 'that in my time of trouble and affliction, you, whom I have enriched and favoured beyond all my handmaidens, should desert me. If I did not love thee, I should order thee to be executed. 'It was for thy advantage that I was absent, said Elined. 'I reproached not thy grief when thy lord lay dying, but now you have yourself to think of.
From her window the countess watched with a sorrowing and dreading heart; for Elined had not yet returned, and therefore the countess must be the prize of one of these suitors who had pestered her, and none of whom she cared for.
Without a word Elined turned and went from the room. But she had not gone far before she heard the countess coughing behind her, and on looking back her mistress beckoned to her. 'You are indeed hardhearted, Elined, said she, 'to think to leave me in my grief, and in my need of good counsel. I will overlook thy cruelty if, as you say, you have been absent for my advantage. What mean you by that?
'Yet I will wager to find thee such another, even excelling him in knightly prowess, in beauty of person, and for love and devotion to thee more than his equal, replied Elined, who remembered that the dead earl had not been over tender to his gentle countess on many occasions.
A voice, soft and sad, replied, 'A mortal I am indeed, but soon shall I be dead, and as cold as the stone in which I am imprisoned, unless one man help me. The stone was so thick that the voices of both were muffled, so that neither recognised the other. Sir Owen asked who it was who spoke to him. 'I am Elined, handmaiden to the Lady of the Fountain, was the reply. 'Alas! alas! cried Sir Owen.
He hath just proved himself the doughtiest among a hundred. The terror of the countess was changed instantly into joy, and she put forth her hand, and Sir Owen bent and kissed it, and she led him to the window seat, and commanded Elined to sit with them.
Elined went to the castle and found all was in confusion, with mourning and lamentation. Her mistress she found sitting listlessly looking from the window with pale sorrow on her face; and to Elined's greeting she would respond not. 'It astounds me, said Elined at length, 'to find you giving yourself up to unavailing sorrow in this way.
'And where couldst thou find this paragon? said the countess, flushing a little at the reminder of her late lord's neglect. 'At the court of King Arthur, replied Elined; 'for there are to be found the peerless knights of the world, men of their knightly words, and devoted to love and war.
When the procession had passed out of the town the maiden Elined came into the room, and Sir Owen asked her eagerly who was the lady he had seen. 'Heaven is my witness, replied Elined, 'but she is the fairest and the sweetest and the most noble of women. She is my beloved mistress, and her name is Carol, and she is Countess of the Fountain, the widow of him thou didst slay yesterday.
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