"There must be difficulties." She spoke without looking round.
"Difficulties! Ah yes, and these English do not guess one-half of them."
She made no reply. Her head bent and her fingers fumbled at the latch, which she presently undid, and a great breath of cool air, pure, with the perfume of a hundred trees, swept into the room.
The wood was motionless, the boughs dark against a lighter sky; one or two stars pulsed secretively through and above the leafage, for all the summer night they had a cold look, as if they circled in far-off frozen latitudes.
Mary knew and loved the wood so well that she was sensitive to those subtle changes in it which were like moods in a human being; to-night, unseen, shadowed like the thought of coming trouble, it seemed to her sad, mysterious, and lonely, as the image of retreating happiness.
She rested her head against the mullions, and presently put her hands up to her face. Her husband, who had stood without a movement by the table watching her, at this crossed over to her side.
"I would to God," he said with energy, "that this could be helped. I would the scandal of a break with your father could be avoided. But he hath had every chance to be my friend and ally—you must admit, Mary, that he hath had every chance."
The few words conveyed to the Princess his meaning. She knew that he referred to his long uphill struggle, lasting close on twenty years, to induce England to shake off the yoke of France, and, in taking her proper place among nations, restore the balance of power in Europe. Throughout the years of the disgraceful reign of his Uncle Charles, William had never swerved from his policy of endeavouring to detach him from France, for it was very evident that but little headway could be made against Louis while England was in his pay. When James had come to the throne, the Stadtholder, with the utmost patience, had changed his tactics to please the new King, and had, as he said, given him every chance to put himself at the head of the inevitable conflict between France and Europe, which must shortly take place.
Mary knew this; she knew how reluctantly her husband would employ force against so near a kinsman, how unwillingly he would leave Holland, how much long experience had taught him to mistrust the levity of the English, even those most professedly friendly to him, and she was aware that only a tremendous need could force him to this tremendous resolution, which was at once more daring and more necessary than any man could realize save himself.
In her heart she blamed her father most bitterly for forcing on them this hateful expedient; but would not say so, nor open her heart at all on that matter, lest her lips said more than her conscience could approve.