“Do you think I have ever slept at the hour of one to two any night of all the long nights here?” answered Sophia Dorothea. “But this is the first time I have passed it in this dress–in the firelight.” “There was a great clock in the corner,” said Madame von Arlestein in her indistinct, failing voice, “and when they shut him in it was just striking two.” “Do you think,” asked the Princess violently, “that I did not hear it?” She came again to the hearth, moving with the rigidity of age; the brocade hung loosely on her hollowed form, showing how the soft flesh that had once filled it out had shrunk and withered. “What a life mine has been,” she said, standing as if she listened to the wind; “that one night and thirty-two years to think over it. For I have never been able to think of anything else, Annette.” “_Twenty minutes after one_,” mumbled the Countess; “that was the time you opened the door and stepped into the kitchen—” The Princess put her hand to her bosom. “Annette, Annette, are there no spells to conjure him back? But if he came he would not know us–two old women!” “Get to bed,” answered the Countess von Arlestein. “I am tired.” “Go then–leave me,” said her mistress. The old woman took one of the candles from the mantelpiece; her hand shook so that the wax ran down the stick and over her fingers. “One word,” the Princess turned commanding eyes on her. “If I should die first, Annette, you will never let them know the truth.” “I have forgotten the truth,” returned the other with something of a sneer. “No–you _know_ it–you and I only. Guilty, they say; but some say, perhaps my son says, innocent. Let it remain unsolved.” “Whatever I said would not be believed now, and I am older than you; I shall die first. Oh, content you, Serenity, I shall not speak.” She moved slowly, a bunchy black figure, towards the door, which she pulled open on the black corridor. Holding aloft her candle, she peered into this darkness. “It is so late; the lights are out,” she quavered, “and I am afraid of the ghosts in the passages.” “If _he_ thought in his heart that I might be innocent, it would trouble him on the day of his death, I think,” said the Princess. She seated herself in the worn chair. “I feel very cold,” she added. Madame von Arlestein turned back into the room and let the door swing to behind her. “My eyes dazzle with the firelight,” said Sophia Dorothea. “Something is going to happen–at last.” “It was speaking of the past,” answered the Countess. “Why did we when we had been silent so long?” “I have described a circle,” murmured the Princess, “and I am back again to that night.” “You are ill. I will call some one—” “No,” said her mistress in a terrible voice. “Call no one.” The Countess replaced the candle on the mantelshelf. “Will you pray?” “Why should I pray? My prayers were exhausted long ago.” Her head drooped to one side.