“I wonder why he doesn’t want me to open just that door?” she kept asking herself.
Finally one day when old Wetehinen was away she thought:
“I don’t believe it would matter if I opened that door just a little crack and peeped in once! No one would know the difference!”
For a few moments she hesitated, then mustered up courage enough to turn the key in the forbidden lock and throw open the door.
The room was a storeroom with boxes and chests and old jars piled up around the wall. That was unexciting enough, but in the middle of the floor was something that made her start when she saw what it was. It was blood—that’s what it was, a pool of dark red blood! She was about to slam the door shut when she saw something else that made her pause. This was a lovely shining ring that lay in the midst of the pool.
“Oh!” she thought to herself, “what a beautiful ring! If I had it I’d wear it on my finger!”
The longer she looked at it, the more she wanted it.
“If I’m very careful,” she said, “I know I could reach over and pick it up without touching the blood.”
She tiptoed cautiously into the room, wrapped her skirts tightly about her legs, knelt down on the floor, and stretched her arm over the pool. She picked up the ring very carefully but even so she got a few drops of blood on her fingers.
“No matter!” she thought, “I can wash that off! And see the lovely ring!”