“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. The Queen’s face changed; she moved back. “God forgive you, Madame la Duchesse,” she said in a voice torn and broken. “God have mercy on you.” With that she burst into tears and hurried from the room, the light running down her silver dress. Madame was silent; she lay with her hand over her eyes until they came to move her back into her own bed that had been re-made. Then she asked for the King. He had returned, she was told, to Versailles. She never mentioned his name again. With his departure all hope and desire of life had gone; he had fled, forsaken her. She almost wished to die now, so that she might have respite from her pain. The Mârechal de Granmont was brought to her bedside; she told him that she was poisoned and bid him farewell. She began to cough. “It is the death cough,” she said. “Do you remember how my mother coughed just before she died?” She then asked how long she had to live, and expressed again her desire to confess. The King had gone and the doctors had said there was no hope. She thought no more of life; she made no complaint of her terrible and sudden death, of her cruel agonies; she made no reflection on the bitterness of dying in the midst of triumph, in the flower of her youth; she tried to face the certainty of approaching Death with what courage she might; she tried to realise a thing that till now she had never thought of. She confessed again to M. Feuillet; he was a stern priest, and exhorted her in a severe fashion. When he had finished a Capuchin Father, her usual confessor, began to speak to her. His discourse wearied her; she was trying to realise God for herself. The room was full of people; she saw them in a blur behind the figures of the two priests: she heard their talking, their sobbing. She noted the lines of her bed curtains, of her coverlet, and these things troubled her. Presently another figure came to her bedside. After a moment she knew him–Lord Montagu, the English Ambassador. She thought of her brother. “Tell him–that none loved him better than I—” Her voice failed. My Lord answered her in English. “Are you poisoned, Madame? I have heard it said. Is it true?” “Yes. But in error–I accuse no one. Do not tell my brother; he might wish to take vengeance—” Here M. Feuillet interrupted; she had spoken in English, but he had caught the word “poison.”