The worthy clergyman returned in the afternoon, and again in the evening, and found the queen, in spite of her indescribably violent illness, rather more calm; and when he returned to the castle on the next morning, he found that Superintendent General Jacob had already been with the patient, and the two physicians were still with her. On the faces of the physicians he fancied he could read a certain calmness, and, in fact, the patient was better, as she herself said. It was the usual lucid interval which takes place before departure from life, the harbinger of imminent death, dressed in the garb of mercy for the friends of the departing. The queen employed these last moments in the exercise of a good deed. She requested the clergyman to write a few words for her to her brother, which would show that she had not forgotten her attendants, but recommended them to the King of England. She tried to dictate the words to him, but her tongue was already refusing to obey her, and she left it to the pastor to write what he thought proper. When he had finished, she took the paper in her hand, but returned it to him again immediately, that he might read it to her and seal it before her eyes. The letter was then handed by the queen to Director von Marenholz, whom she had ever deeply respected, for transmission to the king. Toward evening the condition of the queen had evidently grown so serious, that her dissolution might be apprehended at any moment. She was told that the whole city was alarmed about her, and that even the Jewish community had offered up prayers for her. "How this sympathy alleviates my sufferings!" the queen answered, in a weak voice; and the clergyman offered up a prayer in words which her eyes confirmed as her own. Then she inquired after the condition of Sophie von Benningsen; and when the physician gave her the assurance that the child was out of all danger, she breathed the words, "Then I die soothed," and fell asleep not to wake again. Pastor Lehzen, who was present at the queen's death, describes it in the following words:-- "My office has often enabled me to witness the last hours of my fellow-mortals, but I never remember so easy a dissolution, in which death loses all its terrors. The expression of the Scriptures was literally true in this case: she fell asleep like a tired wayfarer." Caroline Matilda died on May 11, 1775, at 10 minutes past 11 P.M., at the age of twenty-three years, nine months, and twenty days. As was very natural in those days, the queen's sudden death aroused suspicions of poison. Mr. Wraxall, however, who asked Mantel about the circumstances, gives us the following account, which may be regarded as authentic:-- I desired to know if there was the shadow of reason to suspect poison or any unnatural means.