At the usual time the chaplain came, the unalterable prayer was uttered; the ladies took up their candles, curtsied and waited for the Princess to precede them upstairs. She, as always, went up to her cold, unadorned room, was undressed and dismissed the ladies, then stood by the great bed with the blue tapestry curtains and sent for Madame von Arlestein. To-night she did not get into bed; she put on a blue bed-gown and went to the fire that blazed, log on log, in the open hearth, but could not do more than warm a portion of the huge draughty room. This bedroom had been hers ever since she had been at Schloss Ahlden, and nothing in it had been altered. The bed stood out into the room facing the fireplace, shrouded with heavy curtains and heavy draperies; either side was a sconce of silver holding five candles against the wooden walls, at the foot was a long casket for clothes and either side of that a leather chair with a fringe round the seat. The door was to the right of the bed, the mullioned windows to the left; they were hung with dark curtains and before each of them were two more of the formal chairs. In the corner beyond the windows was a plain dressing-table holding a few toilet articles, and behind it hung a mirror in a tortoiseshell frame. Before the fireplace were a chair with arms in which Sophia Dorothea now sat and a stool. Beyond the fireplace were a desk and an upright press for clothes. On the polished floor lay a worn carpet; the ceiling hung low and dark; above the mantelshelf stood another mirror, and four candles and a clock were reflected in its murky depths. Firelight and candlelight together caught the shadow of the woman in the chair and flung it large and leaping over wall and ceiling. At her usual time, neither a minute early nor a minute late, Madame von Arlestein entered. Her head was swathed in black lace and her shoulders in a black shawl; her black skirts were wide and stiff and rustling. She held a length of fine white muslin that she had been embroidering for twenty years. As always, she seated herself on the stool, and the delicate needle, guided by her wrinkled hands, flew in and out the embroidery that was beginning to be yellow with age. Sophia Dorothea sat erect in her chair, the black hair, streaked with white as with powder, hung, still thick in the ruins of its beauty, about her shoulders. The firelight softened and warmed the sharp lines of her face and gave a sparkle to her still glorious eyes. “Annette,” she said, “I have been thinking of Philip von Königsmarck to-night.” The old woman looked up from her eternal sewing. “Oh, Madame,” she answered, “you have not spoken that name for many, many years.” “Not for thirty-two years,” said the Princess. “I know exactly.” “Why now?” asked Annette von Arlestein. “Have you forgotten him?” counter-questioned Sophia Dorothea. “No.” “You remember it all?” “All!” “It seems very near to-night,” said the Princess. “Yes, I thought so too.”