"What ails you, Louisa? Why do you look so ill, and tremble so violently? What is the matter?"
"I am quite well, my beloved friend, but I am cold, and the air here seems close and oppressive to me; and it is as silent and lonely as if death were dwelling here. Come, let us go into the garden. Come!" She hastened into the life and sunshine of the garden. The color came to her cheeks again, and her eyes assumed their serenity. She walked with her husband through the long, delightful avenues, and accompanied him to the lake. It lay before them, beautiful Lake Tollen, shining like silver, and fringed with gigantic oaks.
"Oh, my dear Mecklenburg, my dear native country, how beautiful thou art!" exclaimed the queen, and an echo replied from the opposite shore, "Beautiful thou art!"
"The echo is right," said the king. "And, as I am gazing at you, you seem to me again the young princess whom I saw seventeen years ago for the first time. Your return to your native country has made you once more a girl."
"But the girl of seventeen years ago was not so happy as is the matron and mother of to-day," said the queen. "At that time I did not have you, my husband, nor my beloved children! I am younger in my heart to-day than then, for love imparts and preserves youthfulness."
"God preserve you this youth, my Louisa, to the delight of myself and our children! But come, it is cool here by the lake, and you look pale again." They returned to the palace, and the queen spent in the midst of her family a day of unalloyed pleasure. The last day!
When the next morning's sun shone into the queen's bedroom, Louisa attempted to raise herself; her head fell back heavily, and she pressed her hands convulsively against her bosom, exclaiming: "Oh, my heart!" Poor queen! The death-worm was conquering!
"It is nothing!" she whispered to her husband, when the struggle was over. "Nothing but a cold!" she repeated, when the doctors, who had been called from Neustrelitz, came to her bedside.
It was a cold, but the queen was unable to leave her bed to accompany the king to Berlin, when, a few days afterward, pressing state affairs called him back to the capital. She was obliged to remain a few days at Hohenzieritz, in order to rest and recover her strength. But the few days became weeks. She was still ill, and suffered as she had never suffered. Often, in the night, when her friend Caroline von Berg was sitting at her bedside, she beckoned to her and whispered in her ear: "The conquering death-worm! Did I not tell you, Caroline, that it was attacking my heart? Oh, I would the king, my beloved husband, were with me!"
Couriers went to Charlottenburg to the king, and they came every day to Hohenzieritz and inquired in his name for Louisa's health. He himself was unable to come; he was also ill with fever, confining him to his bed.