The Evil One began to lament. “Alas, she is dead,” he said, “and I am left so lonely that it seems as though I could not bear it.”
In the end the merchant gave the Evil One his third daughter for a wife, though it broke his heart to part with her, for she was his youngest daughter and dearer to him than either of the others.
The Evil One married her, and they got in the coach and drove away together.
When the new bride saw the magnificent house he lived in, she was no less pleased with it than her sisters had been.
For a month she and her husband lived there very happily, and then he told her he was obliged to go away on a long journey, and would be gone three days. He gave her the keys of the house, and told her she might go into any of the rooms she chose. Only the Red door at the end of the long passage she must not open on any account.
The new bride promised, and her husband gave her a bunch of flowers, which he begged her to wear while he was gone. Then he rode away.
The girl watched him until he was out of sight, and then the very first thing she did was to put the flowers in a glass of water, that she might keep them fresh until he came back.
After that she began to amuse herself by going over the house and seeing what it contained.
For two days she was very busy in this way, but at the end of that time she had seen everything, and began to wonder what was behind the Red door.
She stood it as long as she could and then she put the key in the lock and turned it. Immediately the door swung open. What was the girl’s horror to see at her feet a chasm of fire, and in it her two dear sisters whom she had thought were dead.