Then she reappeared, and gave a significant order: her bed was to be moved out of her mother's room.

It was the doom of the Duchess of Kent.

The long years of waiting were over at last; the moment of a lifetime had come; her daughter was Queen of England; and that very moment brought her own annihilation.

She found herself, absolutely and irretrievably, shut off from every vestige of influence, of confidence, of power.

She was surrounded, indeed, by all the outward signs of respect and consideration; but that only made the inward truth of her position the more intolerable.