“So I have their permission to die?” She gave a tragic smile and fixed her eyes on her husband. “Where is the King?”
As she spoke he returned with the Queen and Mme de Soissons.
Madame lay silent; the King approached her bed; he railed against the doctors: he seemed confused, bewildered.
“I am no physician,” he said, “but I could have suggested thirty remedies they have not tried, and now they say there is no hope.”
He stood irresolute, looking at her; the candlelight could give no colour to his fair face. She could not believe that he would not send away the others and sit by her till the end; she waited for that. For some tenderness on his part, some passion, some regret, she waited; he came up to her bed, kissed her hands and bade her adieu.
“Adieu!” she echoed. She thought she saw tears in his eyes. “Do not weep for me yet, Sire. The first news you hear in the morning will be of my death; weep then.”
She turned her face away from him and he withdrew with Mme de Soissons. Hearing him go, she moved sharply and opened her eyes.
Close to her stood the stooping figure of Maria Teresa.
Madame looked at her curiously; a few days ago she had seen another Spanish Queen with the same look of grave suffering in her face, the butt of her brother’s court. How often she had laughed at both of them–but now–she suddenly stretched out her arms with an eager gesture.