Her case had caused no sensation; no party espoused her cause; she had no followers, no adherents, no one planned her escape or pitied her, or prayed for her; she was merely forgotten.
Yet she was a living, breathing woman, with power to feel, to endure, to remember–worst of all, that remembering.
The dark crept closer round her as she sat looking out of the window.
The road, the river, the alders, the flats had come to be like the paintings on prison walls; they meant nothing, they did not represent the world, they circled her as surely as walls and moat, they changed as little, they were as cruel in their hard barrenness.
She had been very worldly, very gay, not in the least of a cloistered temperament, not given to caring for things spiritual; she had enjoyed life, she had had a great capacity for living fully and splendidly, a great aptitude for happiness. She remembered now how she had enjoyed life once; it made her feel very, very old.
The world had closed on her early; she was not fifteen when her vivacious, mischievous immature beauty had been wedded to her awkward, slow, selfish young cousin, Georg Ludwig, son of the Electress of Hanover, who was remotely connected with the royal Stewarts of England.
He had never loved her.
And she had laughed at him, even pitied him, not realising the power he possessed over her. Even at twenty-two he had been prosaic, sullen, ungracious, self-important, a Prince without culture, or chivalry, or sensibility, a hard, obstinate man, narrow in heart and brain.
Even her raw ignorance had seen what he lacked. His unlovely person, short and stout, his dull blonde face with the pale prominent eyes, his rude manners and gross self-indulgencies roused aversion in her; his good qualities were not those that made life any easier for her; he was brave in every way, he had much good sense, he was honourable after his fashion. Some women might have been happy with him, not the woman he had married, her bright, impetuous, fastidious nature, avid of enjoyment, was hideously ill-matched with the plodding, dull, coarse character of her husband.
Even their children did not bring them together. When she had been married six years the Revolution hurled the last Stewart from the throne of England and put a Prince of the German Empire in his place. Soon after a law was passed to secure the Protestant succession, and this made the Electress of Hanover heiress to the Throne of England.