Even her raw ignorance had seen what he lacked. His unlovely person, short and stout, his dull blonde face with the pale prominent eyes, his rude manners and gross self-indulgencies roused aversion in her; his good qualities were not those that made life any easier for her; he was brave in every way, he had much good sense, he was honourable after his fashion. Some women might have been happy with him, not the woman he had married, her bright, impetuous, fastidious nature, avid of enjoyment, was hideously ill-matched with the plodding, dull, coarse character of her husband. Even their children did not bring them together. When she had been married six years the Revolution hurled the last Stewart from the throne of England and put a Prince of the German Empire in his place. Soon after a law was passed to secure the Protestant succession, and this made the Electress of Hanover heiress to the Throne of England. For a while Sophia Dorothea had exulted in the prospect of one day being Queen of the second nation in the world. She bloomed gloriously; her husband was openly unfaithful to her. The little court was coarse and sordid and scandalous, but she had the power of extracting pleasure from her life, of throwing the glamour of youth and health over everything. She was frivolous, bold–never sufficiently moved to be indiscreet, though she sailed near to danger many times. Then, when she had been married thirteen years, she met Philip, Count von Königsmarck. After that her life had ended as regarded all those things that made it pleasant, even endurable. Schloss Ahlden had closed on her youth, her beauty, her high spirits, her courage. Her hot passions had flared and wasted and waned without a vent for thirty-two years, and now she was an old woman, almost passive. Almost, not quite. At times her servants were afraid of her; at times she was like a tigress enraged. Even after a lifetime of imprisonment, the passionate spirit at times still ranged and surged against its bonds. Once she had had a desperate desire to pass, if only once, the turnpike on the Hayden road that marked the limit of her drive. She would drive the cabriolet herself, drive furiously as if endeavouring to outstrip the guards who always galloped alongside. But no matter how she drove, always at the turnpike she must turn back. Of late she had not been out at all; she spent her days glooming at the window. Her women had been recently changed; only one remained, who had been with her all the time, and she was very old now and sour with long exile from her kind. She, Madame von Arlestein, had been the confidant of the Princess in the old, old days. The other attendants who came and went, and the changing officers of the gloomy little garrison, said that this austere, bitter old woman really knew if the Princess was innocent or guilty. Guilty the world had called her before it had forgotten her. Those few who still knew her as a living woman were not so sure.