Opposite the pulpit was the plain pew belonging to the Princes of Orange. Here the late Stadtholder had worshipped, and here William, every Sunday since he could remember, had sat for three hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, full in the eye of the preacher, with his open Bible in front of him and before him the whitewashed walls and pillars, the straight green curtains, and the figure of the pastor in his black gown and bands, preaching the doctrines of John Calvin.
He could not recall having ever missed a service here while he was at the Hague. Sometimes his head had ached so that he could hardly hold it up, but he had always sat erect, with his eyes on the preacher, even when he was a child and could not understand the long words used.
Since the declaration of war the States had ordained Wednesday for fasting and prayer, and the Prince had invariably attended but—with his household.
Now, the day before his departure to the Army, he came, for the first time, to the church alone. He mounted into his pew and knelt in his place; his sword making an incongruous rattle on the wooden seat.
He folded his hands on the front of the pew where the Bible rested, hid his face in them, and knelt so, motionless.
The extraordinary silence of a place still in the midst of noise filled the church: the faint echo of the clamour of the busy city without seemed to come from a long way off; the sunshine fell on the blank walls with a dreary sense of remoteness; clamour and sunshine alike could only enter here by a guilty stealth, they seemed to belong to other regions.
When the clock struck it sounded loud and sombre, like a note of warning or reproof, and echoed gloomily down the empty aisles and bare altar chapel.
When at last the Prince rose he remained in his place, gazing down the grim whiteness of the church, his right hand resting on the Bible.
He was very pale, and there was a look of pain about his eyes.
For a while he stood so, the pink mantle rising and falling with his laboured breathing; then he turned sharply.