A little tremor of horror ran through the ladies. Madame de la Fayette looked at Monsieur; he appeared neither startled nor terrified.
“Give some of the chicory water to a dog,” he said, “and watch if it be poison or no.”
But Mme de Gamaches said that the cup she had given to Madame had contained the last there was in the bottle.
It was now half-past five; the doctor returned and gave Madame a glass of viper powders mixed with milk; as she dragged herself up to take it she noticed that the sun was still shining brightly through a chink in the curtains, and it shot across her agony; it was a strange thing that the sun glimmered still over the terraces, the rose-beds, the terraces of St. Cloud, and the broad river running from Paris.
The loathsome mixture did her no good; she was smitten with a deadly sickness, and lay quite still, shivering. M. Vyelen felt her hands, icy cold, her feet as cold.
“I am poisoned,” she said; “I am dying.”
The room was crowded with people; many of them were weeping. The noise of it came heavily to her ears; her eyes were closed.
She wondered why they should weep; nobody was there whom she had imagined fond of her; neither De Guiche, Marsillac, M. de Lorraine–her brother, De Vardes or–the King.
And these? Would any of these care? She trusted none but the last.