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336 in telling it to the king. But he wouldn't believe it. No, he said, they must watch first and see if it was so before they trumped up such stories, and took her to task for them.

So one evening they stood outside the door and listened, and it seemed as though they heard some one talking inside; but when they went in there was no one.

"Who was it you were talking with?" asked the stepmother, both sharp and cross.

"It was no one, indeed," said the princess.

"Nay," said she, "I heard it as plain as day."

"Oh," said the princess, "I only lay and read aloud out of a prayer-book."

"Show it me," said the queen.

"Well, then, it was only a prayer-book after all, and she must have leave to read that," the king said.

But the stepmother thought just the same as before, and so she bored a hole through the wall and stood prying about there. So one evening when she heard that the knight was in the room, she tore open the door and came flying into her stepdaughter's room like a blast of wind; but she was not slow in clasping the book either, and he was off and away in a trice; but however quick she had been, for all that her stepmother caught a glimpse of him, so that she was sure some one had been there.

It happened just then that the king was setting out on a long, long journey; and while he was away the queen had a deep pit dug down into the ground, and there she built up a dungeon, and in the stone and mortar she laid ratsbane and other strong poisons, so