“Get to your bed,” she added. “Leave me here. The fire is falling out, and when it is dead I will go to bed. But now I want to keep watch.” “Keep watch?” “I am waiting.” The storm was subsiding; the casements rattled slightly and mournfully and the rain splashed with a more gentle violence against the panes. The firelight glimmered along the stiff folds of the white brocade and sparkled in the tarnished gold threads of the petticoat. Sophia Dorothea, gaunt and white, was flushed by this warm glow that was growing fainter and dying as the logs broke and fell into ashes. For some minutes she sat so; then she looked up at the old woman leaning over her. “Remember,” she said, “never tell.” Utter silence again, save for the mutter of the departing wind and the patter of the ceasing rain. “She is ill,” muttered Madame von Arlestein, and hobbled to the door. She clapped her hands and cried out for help in a feeble voice that fell uselessly, unheard, into the dark passages of Schloss Ahlden. Then came a sound that silenced her, the clock striking two. “_Ach, Gott in Himmel!_” she muttered, cold with fright. “I heard that oven door closing again—” She hurried back to her mistress, the clear clang of iron still in her ears. Sophia Dorothea lay back in her chair; her face was tilted upwards; she looked as fresh, as beautiful, as young as on that night thirty-two years ago. There seemed no white in her hair and her limbs filled triumphantly the rich brocade. “I am getting blind,” said Annette von Arlestein, “and this cursed firelight–but you look as you looked _then_—” She peered closer and gave a cracked scream. It was a corpse she stared at; Sophia Dorothea had gone. THE YELLOW INTAGLIO GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA “D. M. C. Johannes jacet hic Mirandula caetera morut Et Tagus et Ganges forsan et Antipodes Ob. an. sal. McLXXXIII, vix. an. XXXII. Hieronimus Beninienius ne disiunetus post mortem locus orsa separet quor animas In vita coniunxit amor hac humo supposita ponu curarit Ob. an. M.D.XXXXII. vix. an. lxxxix Mens. vi.” _Tablet to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in the Church of St. Mark, Florence._ Giovanni Pico, Conte della Mirandola, sat at the window of his apartment; the midday glow of a gentle winter sun was on his face; against the straight pink-toned marble front of the Palazzo opposite three dark pines rose and flung their long shadows up the street. The November sky was clear and cold in colour–the blue of chilly water. Below in the street was silence, and in the chamber with the dull terra-cotta walls and sandstone floor was silence too.