He put his hand before his eyes, and fell down beside her bed, motionless, along the shining floor. Mary clasped her hands on her bosom, and her head drooped to one side; she continually coughed, and her lids closed heavily. Lady Temple had run forward as the King fell; Portland and Leeds raised and carried him, easily enough, into the antechamber. Dr. Radcliffe gave the Queen a cordial; she thanked him, and seemed a little revived. "Let me sit up," she whispered. Her ladies raised her against the piled-up cushions. "The King"—she added—"the King?—my eyes are weak—I thought—he left me——" "Dear Lady," answered Dorothy Temple, commanding her own tears, "he is in the next chamber——" She knew while she spoke that he had fallen into a succession of fits so terrible that not one doctor there thought he could live. "Perhaps," gasped Mary, "it were better if we—were spared—a final farewell—I could not well bear it——" She leant against Lady Temple’s shoulder, and her lips moved in prayer. Her face was very troubled, and she continually sighed. "Madam, are you at peace?" asked Lady Temple. "I am not sorry to go to God," she answered; "but I am weak about the King—I would I might have been spared a little longer with him." Presently she fell asleep, peacefully it seemed, and still with prayers on her lips. Lady Temple crept from the bed where Lady Portland pulled the curtains to shield the Queen from the light, and asked Dr. Radcliffe how long it might be now? He shook his head sadly. "A few hours, my lady." Dorothy Temple burst out into subdued grief. "We have the greatest loss in this lady! I have known her since she was a child, and she had never a fault—this is a bitter thing for all of us, and for England." The doctor answered grimly— "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——" Portland, with a little sigh of despair and weariness, went into the antechamber. It was well lit and full of people. The King was seated on his camp-bed—a dishevelled, pitiful figure—lamenting to himself with a violence and boundless passion that had the force and incoherence of insanity.