He hurried to her bedside at the first news of the serious turn which her condition had taken.
To his surprise she did, in a faint and halting manner, contrive to speak a few words to him when she realized that he was near. First she thanked him for carrying out so scrupulously the late Emperor’s wishes with regard to the surveillance of his present Majesty. Much had happened in the last years for which she had cause to be grateful to him, and she had often meant to tell him how sensible she was of his kindness. And there was another matter of which she had meant for some time to speak … to the Emperor himself. She was sorry she had never… Here her voice became inaudible, and tears for a while prevented him from making a reply. He feared that this display of emotion would arouse comment among those who were standing by; but indeed any one who had known her as she used to be might well have been overcome with grief to see her in so woeful a condition. Suddenly he looked up. No thought or prayer of his could now recall her; and in unspeakable anguish, not knowing whether she heard him or no, he began to address her: ‘In spite of the difficulties into which I myself have sometimes fallen, I have tried to do my best for His Majesty, or at any rate, what then seemed to me best. But since the death of the old Grand Minister, everything has gone wrong; and with you lying ill like this I do not know which way to turn. Were you now to die, I think I should soon follow you….’ He paused, but there was no reply; for she had died suddenly like a candle blown out by the wind, and he was left in bewilderment and misery.
She was, of all the great ladies about the Court at that time, the most tender-hearted and universally considerate. Women of her class do not as a rule expect to compass their own ends without causing considerable inconvenience to
