“The King was hunting. Her anxiety for his return was greater than ever. The moment he arrived he sent a page to desire to have coffee and take his bark in the Queen’s dressing-room. She said she would pour it out herself, and sent to inquire how he drank it.
“The King is very sensible of the great change there is in himself, and of her disturbance at it. It seems, but Heaven avert it! a threat of a total breaking up of the constitution. This, too, seems his own idea. I was present at his first seeing Lady Effingham on his return to Windsor this last time. ‘My dear Effy,’ he cried, ‘you see me, all at once, an old man.’
“I was so much affected by this exclamation, that I wished to run out of the room. Yet I could not but recover when Lady Effingham, in her well-meaning but literal way, composedly answered, ‘We must all grow old, sir; I am sure I do.’
“He then produced a walking-stick which he had just ordered. ‘He could not,’ he said, ‘get on without it; his strength seemed diminishing hourly.’
“He took the bark, he said; ‘but the Queen’ he cried, ‘is my physician, and no man need have a better; she is my Friend, and no man can have a better.’
“How the Queen commanded herself I cannot conceive.... Nor can I ever forget him in what passed this night. When I came to the Queen’s dressing-room he was still with her. He constantly conducts her to it before he retires to his own. He was begging her not to speak to him when he got to his room, that he might fall asleep, as he felt great want of that refreshment. He repeated this desire, I believe, at least a hundred times, though, far enough from needing it, the poor Queen never uttered one syllable; He then applied to me, saying he was really very well, except in that one particular, that he could not sleep....
“3RD.—We are all here in a most uneasy state. The King is better and worse so frequently, and changes so, daily, backwards and forwards, that everything is to be apprehended, if his nerves are not some way quieted. I dreadfully fear he is on the eve of some severe fever. The Queen is almost overpowered with some secret terror. I am affected beyond all expression in her presence, to see what struggles she makes to support serenity. To-day she gave up the conflict when I was alone with her, and burst into a violent fit of tears. It was very, very terrible to see!...
“5TH.—I found my poor Royal Mistress, in the morning, sad and sadder still; something horrible seemed impending....
“I was still wholly unsuspicious of the greatness of the cause she had for dread. Illness, a breaking up of the constitution, the payment of sudden infirmity and premature old age for the waste of unguarded health and strength—these seemed to me the threats awaiting her; and great and grievous enough, yet how short of the fact!...
“At noon the King went out in his chaise, with the Princess Royal, for an airing. I looked from my window to see him; he was all smiling benignity, but gave so many orders to the postilions, and got in and out of the carriage twice, with such agitation, that again my fear of a great fever hanging over him grew more and more powerful. Alas! how little did I imagine I should see him no more for so long—so black a period!