“You will need patience,” said he. “The winter must come and go before the tree whitens again, for it is only the blossom that can cure the poison of the fruit. When spring comes you must make a crown of the white flowers and take it as a gift to the Princess. If you can persuade her to wear it—if only for a few moments—her heart will change, and she will once more be the woman she was.” The King’s face fell. It was full six months of waiting and it seemed like an eternity. “Now let me go!” cried the old man again. “I will unbind you, as I promised,” said the King, “but from now till the day we return together to pluck the flowers I will not lose sight of you—no, not for an hour—until your words are proven. Come, hold out your hands and feet, and I will cut the cords. Then we will turn our faces to my kingdom.” And the prisoner was mounted and led away between two men-at-arms in the King’s troop. * * * * * While these things were happening, the Princess was on the road home. Having arrived, she shut herself up in her rooms and would hardly deign to go outside the walls of her garden, or to notice anyone. When her father was with her she treated him as though he were an intruder, and the slightest difference of opinion between them threw her into a fury. She would pace up and down the corridor, her figure erect, her head thrown back; in her eyes was the look of one scarce conscious of her surroundings. And indeed, her soul had strayed into another world—the world of pride, and self and hardness of heart. Time went, and the leaves of the Tree of Pride lay thick round its foot. Winter’s white veil covered plain and city, and the Princess, in her palace, drew every day farther from humanity; only the King, in his distant kingdom, hoped on, waiting for spring. But in the old man, his prisoner, a mighty change was being wrought, and his malignant spirit was beginning to go from him. He had never before been brought so close to a noble human being. As the King had said, so he had done, and in the winter which followed his return he had hardly allowed his hostage out of his sight for an hour: waking, he kept him at his side, and sleeping, he lay across his barred door.