She spent eight days in his palace—days full of every enjoyment; and Percinet tried all the arguments he could think of to induce her to marry him, and remain there for ever. But the good and gentle Graciosa remembered her father who was once so kind to her, and she preferred rather to suffer than to be wanting in duty. She entreated Percinet to use his fairy power to send her home again, and meantime to tell her what had become of her father.
"Come with me into the great tower there, and you shall see for yourself."
Thereupon he took her to the top of a tower, prodigiously high, put her little finger to his lips, and her foot upon his foot. Then he bade her look, and she saw as hi a picture, or as in a play upon the stage, the King and Grognon sitting together on their throne. The latter was telling how Graciosa had hanged herself in a cave.
"She will not be much loss, sire; and as, when dead, she was far too frightful for you to look at, I have given orders to bury her at once."
She might well say that, for she had had a large faggot put into a coffin, and sealed up; the king and all the nation mourned over it; and now, that she was no more, they declared there never was such a sweet creature as the lost princess.
The sight of her father's grief quite overcame Graciosa. "Oh, Percinet!" she cried, "my father believes me dead. If you love me, take me home."
The prince consented, though very sorrowfully, saying that she was as cruel to him as Grognon was to her, and mounted with her in his chariot, drawn by four white stags. As they quitted the courtyard, they heard a great noise, and Graciosa saw the palace all falling to pieces with a great crash.
"What is this?" she cried, terrified.
"Princess, my palace, which you forsake, is among the things which are dead and gone. You will enter it no more till after your burial."
"Prince, you are angry with me," said Graciosa sorrowfully; only she knew well that she suffered quite as much as he did in thus departing and quitting him.