"And your majesty, too."
"Less so this evening, though."
"Do not believe that too confidently, madame," said De Motteville. And, as if to justify her caution, a sharp acute pain seized the queen, who turned deadly pale, and threw herself back in the chair, with every symptom of a sudden fainting fit. Molina ran to a richly-gilded tortoise-shell cabinet, from which she took a large rock-crystal smelling-bottle, and immediately held it to the queen's nostrils, who inhaled it wildly for a few minutes, and murmured:
"It will hasten my death—but Heaven's will be done."
"Your majesty's death is not so near at hand," added Molina, replacing the smelling-bottle in the cabinet.
"Does your majesty feel better now?" inquired Madame de Motteville.
"Much better," returned the queen, placing her finger on her lips, to impose silence on her favorite.
"It is very strange," remarked Madame de Motteville, after a pause.
"What is strange?" said the queen.
"Does your majesty remember the day when this pain attacked you for the first time?"