"A more bitter thing even than you imagine, my lady. I do not think the King will live."
She looked at him in utter terror, and at that moment Portland came out of the antechamber.
"Will you go to His Majesty, doctor?" he said, in a shaking voice. "Millington doth not know what to do."
Radcliffe left them, and Lady Temple desperately seized hold of Portland's arm.
"Oh, William," she whispered; "how is the King?"
"Sorely stricken," he answered. "Is this to be the end?—that he should die for a woman!"
Lady Portland came softly from the bed to her mother and her husband.
"Doth it not seem cruel that the Queen should die?" she murmured. "They say there is no hope——"
"The Queen!" echoed Portland. "I think of the King——"
"Can you not," urged his wife anxiously, "rouse him and bring him back to her? When she wakes she will surely ask for him——"