The trials of the last six months had begun to tell upon Mary's understanding: she was ill with hysterical longings; ill with the passions which Gardiner had kindled and Paget disappointed. A lady who slept in her room told Noailles that she could speak to no one without impatience, and that she believed the whole world was in league to keep her husband from her. She found fault with every one--even with the prince himself. Why had he not written? she asked again and again. Why had she never {p.138} received one courteous word from him? If she heard of merchants or sailors arriving from Spain, she would send for them and question them; and some would tell her that the prince was said to have little heart for his business in England; others terrified her with tales of fearful fights upon the seas; and others brought her news of the French squadrons that were on the watch in the Channel.[328] She would start out of her sleep at night, picturing a thousand terrors, and among them one to which all else were insignificant, that her prince, who had taken such wild possession of her imagination, had no answering feeling for herself--that, with her growing years and wasted figure, she could never win him to love her.[329] [Footnote 328: Le doubte luy est souvent augmentee par plusieurs marchants mariniers et aultres malcontens de son marriage qui venans de France et Espaign luy desguisent et luy controuvent un infinite de nouvelles estranges, les ungs du peu de volunte que le prince a de venir par deca, les aultres d'avoir ouy et entendus combats sur la mer, et plusieurs d'avoir descouvert grand nombre de voisles Francoises avec grand appareil.--Noailles to the King of France: _Ambassades_, vol. iii. p. 253.] [Footnote 329: L'on m'a dict que quelques heures de la nuict elle entre en telle resverie de ses amours et passions que bien souvent elle se met hors de soy, et croy que la plus grande occasion de sa douleur vient du desplaisir qu'elle a de veoir sa personne si diminuee et ses ans multiplier en telle nombre qu'ilz luy courent tous les jours a grande interest.--Noailles to the King of France: _Ambassades_, vol. iii. p. 252.] "The unfortunate queen," wrote Henry of France, "will learn the truth at last. She will wake too late, in misery and remorse, to know that she has filled the realm with blood for an object which, when she has gained it, will bring nothing but affliction to herself or to her people."[330] [Footnote 330: Ibid. p. 255.]