He had just lost his wife, Ulrique Eléonore. Although it is said that his severity had hastened her end, he held her in esteem, and appeared more affected by her death than would have been expected of a man so hard of heart. After that event he grew still more taciturn and gloomy than before, and gave himself up to work with an application that showed an urgent desire to dispel sad thoughts. At the close of one autumn evening he was sitting in his private apartment in the Stockholm Palace, in his dressing-gown and slippers, before a great fire. With him was his chamberlain, Count Brahé, who was one of his most favoured courtiers, and his physician, Baumgarten, who, it may be remarked in passing, set up for a sceptic, and who would have liked people to disbelieve in everything but in medicine. This night he had been summoned to advise on some slight ailment. The evening lengthened, but contrary to his habit the King made no sign of dismissal to his companions. He sat in deep silence, his head lowered, and his eyes fixed upon the burning logs, wearied of their company, but afraid, without knowing why, of being left alone. Count Brahé had shrewdly observed that his presence was distasteful to the King, and had several times hinted that he feared His Majesty was in need of repose; but the King had signified by a gesture that he wished him to remain. The physician, in his turn, spoke of the ill-effects to health of keeping late hours. Charles only muttered, "Stay where you are; I have no desire to sleep yet." At this stage the courtiers tried several different topics of conversation, but all fell flat at the end of the second or third sentence. It was evident that His Majesty was in one of his black moods, and in such circumstance the position of a courtier is decidedly delicate. Count Brahé, suspecting that the King was brooding over the loss of his wife, gazed for some time at the portrait of the Queen which hung on the wall of the room, and remarked with a deep sigh-- "What an excellent likeness! Just the expression she wore, so majestic and yet so gentle." "Bah!" the King broke in rudely. "That portrait is too flattering. The Queen was ugly." He was always suspicious of there being underlying reproaches whenever anyone mentioned her name in his presence. Then, vexed at his harshness, he rose and paced the room to hide a blush of shame. He stopped in front of the window which looked on to the courtyard. It was a dark night and the moon was in its first quarter. The palace in which the Kings of Sweden now reside was not then finished, so that Charles XI., who had begun it, lived then in the old palace on the promontory of Ritterholm overlooking the Lake Moeler. It was a vast building in the form of a horse-shoe. The King's cabinet was at one of the extremities, and nearly opposite it was the large audience hall where Parliament assembled to receive communications from the Crown.