The Countess took her leave and Mary put out the candles, which left the room only illumed by the steady glow from the white, hot heart of the open stove. Mary drew the curtains from the tall window and looked out. It was a clear frosty night, utterly silent; the motionless branches of the trees crossed and interlaced into a dense blackness, through which the stars glimmered suddenly, and suddenly seemed to disappear. The chimes of the Groote Kerk struck the half-hour, and the echoes dwelt in the silence tremblingly. Mary dropped the curtain and walked about the room a little. Then she went to the still open desk and took up the remaining letter—that of the Prince. With it in her hand she stood thoughtful, thinking of her father in France, of all the extraordinary changes and chances which had brought her to this situation, face to face with a dreaded difference from anything she had known. She went on her knees presently, and rested her head against the stool, worked by her own fingers in a design of beads and wool, and put the letter against her cheek, and desperately tried to pray and forget earthly matters. But ever between her and peace rose the angry, tragic face of her father and the stern face of her husband confronting each other, and a background of other faces—the mocking, jeering faces of the world—scorning her as one who had wronged her father through lust of earthly greatness. CHAPTER XVIII BY THE GRACE OF GOD The Princess’s boat, with her escort of Dutch warships, rode in the Thames at last. The frost had broken, and she arrived not long after her letter to Lord Danby had scattered that statesman’s party, and frustrated his hopes of placing her on the throne. The Prince having soon after declared his mind to the lords in council, that he would accept no position dependent on his wife’s pleasure or the life of another (for there had been talk of a regency, leaving the King the nominal title), made it clear that if his services were to be retained, if he was not to abandon them to the confusion, strife, and disaster from which his presence alone saved them, he must be King. All parties uniting, then, on what was now proved to be the winning side, the Convention voted the offer of the crown to the Prince and Princess jointly—the sole administration to rest with him. The succession, after naming the direct line, was left vague to please the Prince, who was free to flatter himself that he could choose his own heir.