“What, then, has happed?”
“Naught, of great moment—no, in sooth, naught but what should have been. But I vow my heart was bruised sore when the queen’s grief brake forth. Nothing loath was she to go; but when she saw
the Princess Mary was not let go with her, and the door of the coach closed, she fain would have cast herself without. Then she uttered cries the most heartrending, and, stretching out her arms towards us, besought us to let her return and once more embrace her daughter. The princess, seeing the despair of her mother, with sobs and cries begged to follow her. At length, there being no way to prevent the queen from descending, she clasped her a thousand times in her arms. She then wrote something on a scrap of paper I have here, and bade me deliver it to your majesty, which I promised to do. She entreated all present to beg you to have compassion on her and send the Princess Mary to her; that she asked but this one favor, and then she would consent to do all that you wished. It was necessary to carry her to the coach; for she fell fainting while embracing her daughter for the last time.”
“Always these fainting fits of hers,” replied the king angrily; “yet will she say it is I who have slain her. Come, let us see the paper!”
Norris presented it.
The king opened it and read the following words which the queen had written in a trembling hand:
“Sire: What have I done to you that you treat me thus? You banish me from your palace and condemn me to exile. Alas! to this I had submitted; but why have you the cruelty to separate me from the only good of mine that is left in all the world? You know well that never have I gainsaid wish of yours; but is it in my power not to be your lawful wife? I conjure you, then, to have compassion on me! Give me back my daughter; give her to me, and I will weep no
more the lot you have cast for me. Become a stranger in the land over which you reign, at least permit to die in peace an unfortunate woman whom you have deprived of her rank, her country, and her friends. Leave me my daughter to console the last days of a life that is almost ended. What can you hope or fear from her? Since you cast her out from your arms, leave me the happiness to take her to mine. I am her mother; I have brought her into the world in sorrow; I have nourished her from my own bosom—she is mine; and, since it is your will to deprive her of a father, do not, at least, tear her from the arms of her unhappy mother.”
This letter, still all wet with tears, produced a painful impression on the mind of Henry.
“This fellow will assuredly find me of the cruelest,” he said to himself. “It is well, it is well,” he added in a loud voice. “It is a request that she makes to me; we will see to it later on. Everything is ready, Norris?” he added immediately.