She saw before her a long vista of darkened and solitary rooms, dim portraits of the marshals of France just visible on their walls.

Suddenly--under a gleam of light from a shutter not yet fastened--there shone out amid the shadows a bust of Louis Seize! The Bourbon face, with its receding brow, its heavy, good-natured lips, its smiling incapacity, held--dominated--the palace.
Eugenie watched, holding her breath.

Slowly the light died; the marble withdrew into the dark; and Louis Seize was once more with the ghosts.
Eugenie's fancy pursued him.

She thought of the night of the 20th of January, 1793, when Madame Royale, in the darkness of the Temple, heard her mother turning miserably on her bed, sleepless with grief and cold, waiting for that last rendezvous of seven o'clock which the King had promised her--waiting--waiting--till the great bell of Notre Dame told her that Louis had passed to another meeting, more urgent, more peremptory still.
'Oh, poor soul!--poor soul!' she said, aloud, pressing her hands on her eyes.
'What on earth do you mean!' said Mrs.Welby's voice beside her--startled--stiff--a little suspicious.
Eugenie looked up and blushed.
'I beg your pardon!--I was thinking of Marie Antoinette.' 'I'm so tired of Marie Antoinette!' said the invalid, raising a petulant hand, and letting it fall again, inert.

'All the silly memorials of her they sell here!--and the sentimental talk about her! Arthur, of course, now--with his picture--thinks of nothing else.' 'Naturally!' 'I don't know.