Windflower at once set out for the King's city, and when she got there she found every one in woe and trouble because Prince Sweetbriar was lying mortally sick and nobody could cure him. The King had offered half his kingdom to any one who should cure the Prince, but nobody had even tried.
Windflower, who was in rags and quite unrecognisable, crept into the kitchen and begged a little bread for herself and her little daughter Sundew. She was allowed to warm herself at the fire, and she heard that the Prince had been wounded by a poisoned arrow, and that if some one would suck the poison from his wound he would recover; but nobody would do this, for they knew that they would die themselves, and what was the use of half a kingdom to a dead man?
So Windflower went to the King, and offered to cure the Prince on the condition that he should give her as a gift anything she should ask for.
The King agreed, and Windflower went to the Prince and sucked the poison from his arm. Sweetbriar at once began to get well, and he asked Windflower what she craved as a reward.
"The ring upon your finger," said Windflower.
Sweetbriar gave her the ring, and immediately her heart came back to her, and with it Sweetbriar's love, and he remembered everything and recognised Windflower, and with a great cry he took her in his arms.
And Windflower's heart overflowed with joy. She slipped the ring on her little daughter's finger, then she looked at her husband and smiled, and fell asleep in his arms. She never woke up again, because the poison she had sucked from Sweetbriar's wound was deadly.
And Sweetbriar drove Emerald and her mother from the house, and although his heart was broken, he said no word and he shed no tear, for he knew that it had all come about through his own fault, and that Windflower was very happy and glad to be asleep, because she was so tired.
But his little daughter Sundew laughed, and played with him every day, and she mended his broken heart for him very well, although it was never quite the same as it had been before. And she grew up to be as beautiful and as good as Windflower, and she never gave away her mother's ring.