It was astonishing how strong hope was, how it lived and flourished with nothing to feed on; but it died at last, as the black locks faded to gray, as the robust young body became feeble and thin, as the glowing cheek sunk and the brilliant eyes grew dim, hope sickened and died at last. She watched the white road from habit; she ceased to think of it as a highway to deliverance. As the world had forgotten her, so she began to forget the world. Great wars tore Europe, and the man who was her husband and Elector of Hanover played a big part in them, though through the chance of birth and from no great merit; she never heard of these events. When he became King of England she did hear of it, but it made no difference to her situation. Her name was never spoken outside the walls of Schloss Ahlden; she was as remote from the minds of men, even from the minds of her children, as if she had been long dead. A mere memory–Sophia Dorothea of Zell, repudiated by her husband and a prisoner at Ahlden–as one might say–Sophia Dorothea of Zell who died thirty-two years ago and is forgotten. Her case had caused no sensation; no party espoused her cause; she had no followers, no adherents, no one planned her escape or pitied her, or prayed for her; she was merely forgotten. Yet she was a living, breathing woman, with power to feel, to endure, to remember–worst of all, that remembering. The dark crept closer round her as she sat looking out of the window. The road, the river, the alders, the flats had come to be like the paintings on prison walls; they meant nothing, they did not represent the world, they circled her as surely as walls and moat, they changed as little, they were as cruel in their hard barrenness. She had been very worldly, very gay, not in the least of a cloistered temperament, not given to caring for things spiritual; she had enjoyed life, she had had a great capacity for living fully and splendidly, a great aptitude for happiness. She remembered now how she had enjoyed life once; it made her feel very, very old. The world had closed on her early; she was not fifteen when her vivacious, mischievous immature beauty had been wedded to her awkward, slow, selfish young cousin, Georg Ludwig, son of the Electress of Hanover, who was remotely connected with the royal Stewarts of England. He had never loved her. And she had laughed at him, even pitied him, not realising the power he possessed over her. Even at twenty-two he had been prosaic, sullen, ungracious, self-important, a Prince without culture, or chivalry, or sensibility, a hard, obstinate man, narrow in heart and brain.