“You stood at the door,” she said, “and we both forgot you, and then—” Annette remembered. The bright young beauty had gone straight to her lover’s arms, and without a word they had kissed. Then he had drawn her to the settle, and she had sat beside him, loosening her cloak, and on her throat, her shoulders, her arms he had kissed her again. And presently he had gone on his knees and kissed her gown and her cloak and her hands. The while they never spoke a word, and the Countess von Arlestein watched by the big door. “You did not hear them come,” said the Princess, dropping her hand from her eyes. “No,” answered the old woman. “The first I knew of them was when the door opened—” They could both see that too, in their memory–the door opening on Prince Georg, whose pale eyes saw the Electress in the arms of Philip von Königsmarck while his lips rested on her brow. A woman had betrayed them: a jealous woman enamoured of the young Count had brought the Elector back a day before he was due and sent him here to the kitchens, which the spy had discovered was the meeting-place. Sophia Dorothea remembered how she had lifted her head from her lover’s shoulder to see her husband standing within the door, four officers behind him and a fifth holding Madame von Arlestein. “I am glad I kissed him again,” she muttered. “The firelight was full in the room–like this,” said the old woman. Her blurred eyes gleamed madly; she seemed inspired by her memories. She got to her feet, and the embroideries fell to the hearth. “He fought for you–with his silly little court sword–but he was one to four, all well armed—” “The Elector held my wrists,” said the Princess, “and I had never known he was so strong.… I struggled; _Mein Gott_, how fiercely! but I could not shake his hands.” “They had me against the wall with a bare blade at my breast, and I never moved,” added the Countess. “They had him down–then _she_ came in, the spy, the traitress. ‘Eh, Königsmarck,’ she said (how she had always hated you!), and she set her heel on his mouth as he writhed—” “And I cursed her,” whispered Sophia Dorothea, “and I cursed him and the children I had borne him—” “Ay, you cursed; but they picked him up and—” “Stop!” shrieked the Princess. “Have I not lived with that all these years? He was dead.” “I hope he was dead,” said the Countess; “but the Elector hoped he was alive when the oven door was shut. What did _she_ say? ‘This is not the couch my lord looked for to-night. Your oven takes dainty meat, Serenity!’” “I bit his thumb to the bone,” answered the Princess, clutching the edge of the mantelshelf. “Oh, Jesus, Jesus!” “Why should the High God hear you?” sneered the old woman. “I have lain awake at night remembering that I hurt him. He cried out under his breath, and there was blood on his lace—” “And he struck you in the face as the others stepped back from the fire and gave you a vile name—” “It was the last word he ever spoke to me.”