"I would not have her deceived—in so important a matter," whispered the King—"tell him so." He leant forward and took Leeds by the shoulders. "Is it not an awful thing that she should die—she—to die—you ever loved her—God bless you for that, my lord—she had a sad life"—his voice became very indistinct—"she will not be sorry—but as for me——"
His hands loosened on the Duke's shoulders, and with a little moan he fell into another fainting fit, so long and deathlike that they feared for his reason or his life; it seemed, indeed, as if he would scarcely survive her whose danger caused his despair.
CHAPTER XI
THE BITTER PARTING
The Queen's bed stood out into the room, facing the long windows which looked on to the winter twilight; it was hung with four curtains of gold and blue damask sewn with many-coloured wreaths of flowers that Mary and her maids had worked when seated under the alley of wych-elm at Hampton Court.
The coverlet was of crimson satin embroidered with great roses of England and fringed with bullion. The Queen lay so still that the heavy folds were scarcely disturbed about her limbs. The curtains round the head of the bed had been drawn forward, and the pillows and the face of the Queen were in shadow.
She wore a lace cap with long lappets fastened beneath her chin and a little jacket of blue silk over her muslin nightgown. She was not disfigured, it being the most deadly symptom of her disease that there was no sign of it beyond the deep purple marks that had told Dr. Radcliffe—black smallpox—from the first, and the constant internal bleeding of her throat that had so exhausted her; that had stopped now, and she lay quite free from pain quiet for several hours; not sleeping; sleep, she said, gave her no ease.
To the right of the bed the King knelt with his face hidden in the quilt. There were several prelates and doctors in the room, and by the head of the bed Lady Temple, Madame Nienhuys, Basilea de Marsac, and Lady Portland, the Earl's second wife and Lady Temple's daughter.
At a whispered word from Dr. Radcliffe, Tenison, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, successor to the saintly Tillotson, so beloved by the King and Queen, approached the bed.
As his footfall broke the tense silence Mary lifted her languid eyes; he came round to her left, and stood, in a sorrowful attitude, looking down on her.