At that moment a page announced the Countess Lerchenfeld.
"It is not my child!" cried the empress, turning pale.
The countess, too, was very pale, and she trembled as she approached the imperial mother.
"She is dead!" murmured Marie Antoinette, sinking almost fainting to the floor.
But the empress called out, "Where is my child! In mercy, tell me why you are here without her?"
"Please your majesty," replied the countess, "I come to beg that you will excuse her highness. She has been suddenly taken sick. She was lifted insensible to the carriage, and has not yet recovered her consciousness."
Maria Theresa reeled, and a deathly paleness overspread her countenance.
"Sick!" murmured she, with quivering lip. "What—what happened?"
"I do not know, your majesty. Accordng to your imperial command I accompanied her highness to the chapel. I went as far as the stairway that leads to the crypts. Her highness was strangely agitated. I tried to soothe her, but as she looked below, and saw the open door, she shuddered, and clinging to me, whispered: 'Countess, I scent the loathesome corpse that even now stirs in its coffin at my approach.' Again I strove to comfort her, but all in vain. Scarcely able to support herself, she bade me farewell, and commended herself to your majesty. Then, clinging to the damp walls, she tottered below, and disappeared."
"And did you not hold her back!" cried Marie Antoinette. "You had the cruelty to leave her—"
"Peace, Antoinette," said the empress, raising her hand, imploringly.
"What else?" asked she, hoarsely.