d therefore show me this last kindness."

"I will well," said the princess; and she made Solita to sit upon a
couch, and with two bands of her golden hair she tied her hands fast
behind her, and so laid her upon her back on the couch. And when she
had so laid her she said:

"But for all that you die, he shall not go to Broye, but here shall he
bide, and share my throne with me."

Thereupon did Solita perceive all the treachery of Princess
Joceliande, and vainly she struggled to free her hands and to cry out
for help. But Joceliande clapped her palm upon Solita's mouth, and
drawing a gold pin from her own hair, she drove it straight into her
heart, until nothing but the little knob could be seen. So Solita
died, and quickly the princess wiped the blood from her breast, and
unbound her hands and arranged her limbs as though she slept. Then she
returned to the hall, and, summoning the warden, bade him loose the
Sieur Rudel.

"It shall be even as you wish," she said to him. Wise and prudent had
she been, had she ended with that; but her malice was not yet sated,
and so she suffered it to lead her to her ruin. For she stretched out
her hand to him and said, "I myself will take you to your wife." And
greatly marvelling, the Sieur Rudel took her hand and followed.

Now when they were come to Solita's chamber, the princess entered
first, and turned her again to my Lord Rudel and laid her finger to
her lips, saying, "Hush!" Therefore he came in after her on tiptoe and
stood a little way from the foot of the couch, fearing lest he might
wake his wife.

"Is she not still?" asked Joceliande in a whisper. "Is she not still
and white?"

"Still and white as a folded lily," he replied, "and like a folded
lily, too, in her white flesh there sleeps a heart of gold." Therewith
he crept softly to the couch and bent above her, and in an instant he
perceived that her bosom did not rise and fall. He gazed swiftly at
the princess; she was watching him, and their glances met. He dropped
upon his knees by the couch and felt about Solita's heart that he
might know whether it beat or not, and his fingers touched the knob of
Joceliande's bodkin. Gently he drew the gown from Solita's bosom, and
beheld how that she had been slain. Then did he weep, believing that
in truth she had killed herself, but the princess must needs touch him
upon the shoulder.

"My lord," she said, "why weep for the handmaid when the princess
lives?"

Then the Si