Poor Beauty controlled her tears and answered them: 'Yes, I am to blame for all this, though, indeed, dear sisters, I did it innocently; for how could I guess that to ask for a rose in the middle of summer, as it was then, would give rise to all this misery? But what does that matter? Innocent or guilty, I cannot allow you to suffer for what was my fault; and so I will go back with our father to save him from his promise. That will be in a month's time, and in this little month, I beg of you, let us be happy together without reproaches.'
At first her brothers would not hear of any such sacrifice, and her father was equally set against it, until the sisters again fired up in their jealousy and accused him of being distressed only because it happened to be Beauty; if another of his daughters (they hinted) had offered to pay this price for his life, he would have accepted it cheerfully enough!
Beauty closed this talk by saying firmly that, whether they wished it or not, she would go—'And who knows,' said she, forcing a brave smile, 'but this fate of mine, which seems so terrible, may cover some extraordinary and happy fortune?' She said it merely to hearten them; but her sisters, fancying her deluded by vanity and self-conceit, smiled maliciously and applauded. So their father gave way, and it was agreed that Beauty must go. For her part she desired only that the few days remaining to her might be as happy as possible; and so, as they passed she spoke little of what was before her, and, if at all, only to treat it lightly and as a piece of good fortune. When the time drew near she shared up all her trinkets and little possessions with her sisters—for, badly as they had treated her, they were the only friends she had. Yet jealousy had made their hearts so wicked that when the fatal day arrived they actually rejoiced to hear the neighing of a horse which, punctually sent by the Beast, arrived at the door of the cottage.
Soon they caught sight of the castle in the distance.
The brothers would have rushed out and slain the beautiful animal; but Beauty, mastering their anger with a few tender words, bade her father mount into the saddle; and so, after bidding her sisters farewell with a tenderness that forced them to weep at the last, climbed to the pillion behind him quite as if she were setting out for a holiday. They were off! The horse seemed to fly rather than to gallop; so smoothly that Beauty could scarcely feel the motion save by the soft wind that beat on her cheek. Soon they caught sight of the castle in the distance. Her father, less happy than she, again and again asked and begged her to alight and return—a most idle offer, for he had no real control of the reins. But Beauty did not listen, because her mind was made up.
Nevertheless, she was awed, and all the more when, as the fleet horse galloped up to the courtyard, they were met by a great salvo of guns and, as the echoes died away, by the sound of soft music within the palace.