Surely this is the pure, unadulterated metal. Alas! that it should sometimes lack the glitter of that counterfeit which women grasp at so eagerly in preference to the true gold. So, in extremity of danger, shattered in battle against the chosen friend and comrade whose treachery was only less galling to his noble heart than the disloyalty of his queen, beset by “The godless hosts Of heathen swarming o’er the Northern sea,” stern old foes of himself and Christendom, erst by prowess of that “glorious company,” “The Table Round, In twelve great battles ruining overthrown,” now panting for reprisal and revenge, menaced with open rebellion by a sister’s son, his army melting, his adherents failing, his sceptre sliding from his grasp, Arthur can yet provide tenderly and carefully for her safety who has brought down on him all this shame, ruin, and defeat. “And many more when Modred raised revolt, Forgetful of their troth and fealty, clave To Modred, and a remnant stays with me. And of this remnant will I leave a part— True men who love me still, for whom I live— To guard thee in the wild hour coming on; Lest but a hair of this low head be harmed. Fear not: thou shalt be guarded till my death.” Well might the Queen, when he had passed from her sight for ever, reflect bitterly on the comparative merits of lover and husband, having, like all such women, proved to extremity of torture the devotion of both. “I wanted warmth and colour, which I found In Lancelot. Now I see thee what thou art— Thou art the highest, and most human, too, Not Lancelot, nor another.” Could she but have seen him as he really was in the golden days long ago, when her court formed the centre of all that was bravest and fairest in the world of Christendom, when her life seemed one long holiday of dance and revel in the lighted halls of Camelot, of tilt and tournament and pageantry of mimic war, held in honour of her own peerless beauty, in the Lists of Caerleon, of horn and hound and rushing chase and willing palfrey speeding over the scented moors of Cornwall, or through the sunny glades of Lyonesse, of sweet May mornings when she went forth fresh and lovely, fairer than the very smile of spring, amongst her courtiers, all “Green-suited, but with plumes that mocked the may,”