The Prince was standing before the weeping old man. “And do you think I would accept such a sacrifice?” he said, slowly.
The King made no reply, but covered his face. There was a long silence.
Then the Ugly Prince spoke, and his voice seemed to the little boy as though it were miles away.
“Sire,” he said, “tell the Princess that my only wish is to serve her. I release her from this moment.”
Then the King went slowly away, and, as the curtain fell behind him, the Ugly Prince was left alone with the little boy.
He remembered what the Princess had told him when he took the Heart from her, and he knew that the time had come.
When the King’s subjects heard that the marriage was not to be, they were sorely troubled, and gloom fell over the Palace. The King refused to be comforted, and, when the Prince announced his coming departure, he begged for a last interview before he left.
“What you have told me about the Golden Heart is very wonderful,” he said. “Could it be of no use now?”
“Nothing can be of any use,” sighed the Prince. “It cannot alter my face.”