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110. THE STORY OF A LAY DEVOTEE
Once a man played with the idea of marrying a second wife, but he did not want to be disturbed by the quarrels at home between the two women. So he decided that he should kill the present wife before he married another woman.
He brought in the house a black serpent and put it in an earthen pot. In the night he asked his wife to go to the room where he had kept that pot to pick up a garland of flowers he had specially brought for her and kept in the earthen pot. He now asked her to bring it. The room was dark but she being a religious minded woman folded her hands in salutation and muttered a prayer before she lifted the lid from the earthen pot. Then she put her hand into it and picked up the garland. She brought it to her husband who was completely taken aback to see her alive and whole. He went back to see the pot for himself and indeed there was no serpent in it, but only the fragrance that the flowers had left. In answer to the prayers of his wife some deity had removed the serpent from there. .
Her husband felt terribly guilty, confessed everything to his wife, fell at her feet and asked to be forgiven. He promised that he would do nothing hereafter to harm her.
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