The doctors allowed they were "very, very anxious," but still they would not give up hope. The Queen asked if she might go out for a breath of air, and received an answer with a reservation--"Yes, just close by, for a quarter of an hour." She walked on one of the terraces with Princess Alice, but they heard a military band playing in the distance, and at that sound, recalling such different scenes, the poor Queen burst into tears, and returned to the Castle. Sir James Clark said he had seen much worse cases from which there had been recovery. But both the Queen and the doctors remarked the dusky hue stealing over the hands and face, and there were acts which looked like strange involuntary preparations for departure--folding of the arms, arranging of the hair, &c. The Queen was in great distress, and remained constantly either in the sick-room or in the apartment next to it, where the doctors tried still to speak words of hope to her, but could no longer conceal that the life which was as her life was ebbing away. In the course of the afternoon, when the Queen went up to the Prince, after he had been wheeled into the middle of the room, he said the last loving words, "_Gutes frauchen_," [Footnote: "Good little wife."] kissed her, and with a little moaning sigh laid his head on her shoulder. He dozed and wandered, speaking French sometimes. All his children who were in the country came into the room, and one after the other took his hand, Prince Arthur kissing it as he did so, but the Prince made no sign of knowing them. He roused himself and asked for his private secretary, but again slept. Three of the gentlemen of the household, who had been much about the Prince's person, came up to him and kissed his hand without attracting his attention. All of them were overcome; only she who sat in her place by his side was quiet and still. So long as enough air passed through the labouring lungs, the doctors would not relinquish the last grain of hope. Even when the Queen found the Prince bathed in the death-sweat, so near do life and death still run, that the attendant medical men ventured to say it might be an effort of nature to throw off the fever. The Queen bent over the Prince and whispered "_Es ist kleins Frauchen_." He recognised the voice and answered by bowing his head and kissing her. He was quite calm, only drowsy, and not caring to be disturbed, as he had been wont to be when weary and ill.