All that day she had been overwhelmed by grief; even prayer seemed to bring no relief to her heart. But now she was tranquil, she had thrust back her tears; and the empress-widow, all etiquette forgetting, was making her husband's shroud.
As a woman, she grieved for the partner of her joys and sorrows; as a woman, she wished to pay the last sad honors to the only man whom she had ever loved. She whose hands were accustomed to the sceptre, now held a needle, and to all offers of assistance she made but one reply.
"None of you are worthy to help me in this holy work, for none of you loved him. For you, he was the beneficent and honored sovereign, but for me, he was the joy, the light, the air of my life. I, who loved him, have alone the right to work upon his shroud."
"Oh, your majesty," cried the Countess Dann, while her eyes filled with sympathizing tears, "would that the world could see with what devotion the great Maria Theresa sits in the stillness of the night, and with her own hands prepares her husband's shroud!"
The empress quickly raised her head, and, with something like her accustomed imperiousness, said: "I forbid any one of you to speak of what you have seen to-night. In the simplicity of my grief, I do what my heart urges me to do; but let not my sorrow become the subject of the world's idle gossip. When the husband dies his wife, be she empress or beggar, is nothing but a sorrowing widow. Ah! I am indeed beggared of all my wealth, for I have lost the dearest treasure I possessed on earth. All my joys will die with him."
The empress's sobs choked her utterance; and burying her face in the shroud, she wept aloud.
"In the name of Heaven, your majesty, do not let your tears fall upon the shroud!" cried the Countess Dann, while she tried with gentle force to wrest the cloth from the empress's hands. "I have heard it said that what is laid in the coffin bedewed with tears, draws after it to the grave the one who sheds them."
"Would it were true!" exclaimed the empress, who had already resumed her work. "Would that my Francis could open his arms to receive me, that I might rest by his side from the cares of life! Would that I were with him, who was my lover from earliest childhood; for cold and cheerless will be the life that is no longer lit up by his smile."
She bent over her work, and nothing further was said; but her ladies of honor gazed with tearful eyes upon the high-born mourner, who, in her long, black dress, was making a shroud for her lost husband.
At last the task was completed, and she rose from her seat. With a sad smile she threw the shroud over her head, and it fell around her majestic form like a white veil.