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THE FIRST DISAPPOINTMENT.
A few hours later the equipage of Prince Henry arrived in the court-yard of Monbijou, and the prince demanded of his mother, the widowed queen, permission to pay her his respects.
Sophia Dorothea was suffering greatly.

The gout, that slow but fatal disease, which does not kill at once, but limb by limb, had already paralyzed the feet of the poor queen, and confined her to her chair.
To-day her sufferings were greater than usual, and she was not able to leave her bed.

Therefore, she could not receive the prince as a queen, but only as a mother, without ceremony or etiquette.

That the meeting might be entirely without constraint, the maids of honor left the queen's room, and as the prince entered, he saw the ladies disappearing by another door; the last one had just made her farewell bow, and was kissing respectfully the queen's hand.
This was Louise von Kleist, for whose sake the prince had come, and for whom his heart throbbed painfully.