Laughing, they pressed round the board where the King, taking the pen from Dr. Gilbert, said:
“No wonder the experience failed, particularly after awhile. The cutting blade is crescent-shaped whereas it ought to be triangular to sever a resisting substance. See here: shape your knife thus, and I wager that you would cut me off twenty-four heads one after another without the edge turning up.”
He had scarcely finished the words before a heart-rending scream was heard. The Queen had been attracted to the group of which the King and his corrected sketch were the centre. She beheld the same instrument which had been presented her in its likeness in a glass of water by Balsamo the Magician twenty years before!
At the view she had no strength to do more than scream, and life abandoning her as though she were under the blade, she swooned in the arms of Dr. Gilbert.
It is easily understood that this incident broke up the party.
Gilbert attended to the royal patient who was given the bed of the princess. When the crisis was over, which he rightly attributed to a mental cause, he was going out but she bade him stay.
“Therese,” she added to Lady Lamballe, “tell the King that I have come to: and do not let us be interrupted: I must speak with the doctor. Doctor,” she pursued when they were alone, “are you not astonished that chance seems to place us face to face in all the crises moral or physical of my life?”
“As I do not know whether to be sorry or to be glad for it, since I read in your mind that the contact is not through your wish or your will.”
“That is why I said chance. I like to be frank. But the last time we were in contiguity, you showed true devotion and I thank you and shall never forget it.”
He bowed.