Without knowing who was helping her, Andrea began to recover consciousness but instinctively she knew help had come. At length, with open but ghostly eyes, she stared at Charny without yet recognizing him. She pushed him away, with a scream, then.
The Queen averted her eyes although she ought to have played the woman's part of comforter. She cast off her sister instead of supporting her.
"Pardon her, my lady," said Charny, again taking his wife in his strong arms, "but something out of the way causes this. My lady is not subject to fainting fits and this is, I believe, the first time she has had one in your presence."
"She must have felt much pain," returned the Queen, going back to her first impression that Andrea had overheard them.
"No doubt," said the count, "and you might let me have her carried to her own rooms."
The Queen rang a bell; but at the first tinkle Andrea stiffened in a culvulsion and screamed in delirium:
"Oh, our Gilbert!"
The Queen shuddered to hear the name and the astonished count placed his wife on a sofa.
The servant who ran at the call was dismissed.
Queen and nobleman looked at each other as the sufferer seemed with closed eyes to have another fit. Charny, kneeling by her, had hard work to keep her on the lounge.