“Will you pray?”
“Why should I pray? My prayers were exhausted long ago.”
Her head drooped to one side.
“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.”