Every day Simon sent the Princess richer presents and messengers to crave the boon of an audience; but the Princess made no reply and would never leave her apartments. Every day she used to stand at her window and gaze in the direction where Peter's country lay and pray for his return. One day her ape was with her, and he chattered excitedly and hurled himself into the sycamore tree that grew beneath her window. He returned in a moment with an empty box. She looked into it and saw the image of Peter, as he was, ragged and unhappy, but with adoration in his eyes. Then she could no longer dissemble, but, with happy tears, she confessed to herself that she loved him. . . . Next day she walked in her garden, and on the other side of the little stream marking its boundary she saw Peter. They told their love, and he swore to deliver her and not to see her again until he had done so. With a brave heart she wished him Godspeed and threw him back his box, in which she had concealed three kisses and a lock of her hair. For forty days and forty nights did Peter remain in solitude, wrestling with himself and cogitating how he might best accomplish the salvation of his adored Princess and the country that was dearer to her even than himself. Step by step he followed Simon's career from the time when he had chosen the box with the piece of gold to the golden ruin he had brought upon thousands of men. Then he resolved to send his own box to his brother; nay, himself to take it. He procured gorgeous apparel, and immense chests, and camels and horses and elephants, disguised a hundred and fifty of his friends in Eastern apparel, and in this array presented himself at the Summer Palace, where his brother was lodged. The doors were opened to him, and he was passed on from lackey to lackey until he found himself in his brother's presence. Simon greeted him cordially and asked for his news, and how he had fared. "I have all my desires," said Peter. "I have fulfilled my destiny, and I am come to give you my box. It has served me well." Greedily Simon snatched the box and opened it to see what treasure it might contain. He saw no image of beauty therein, but only himself, and the vision of his own soul crushed by the weight of his possessions, and the pride died in him and all the savage lusts to gratify which he had plotted and schemed and laid waste, and he groaned: "All my power is but vanity and my hopes are in the dust. I am become a monster and unworthy of the Princess Elizabeth."