But the doctor, with excess of caution, declared that he would make a third trial.

Condemned criminals can suffer no worse than Charles in the long hours that passed before that fatal moment when he learned that his mother was indeed guilty.

On the third day the doctor stated on his soul and conscience that Agnes of Durazzo was pregnant.
"Very good," said Charles, dismissing the doctor with no sign of emotion.
That evening the duchess took a medicine ordered by the doctor; and when, half an hour later, she was assailed with violent pains, the duke was warned that perhaps other physicians ought to be consulted, as the prescription of the ordinary doctor, instead of bringing about an improvement in her state, had only made her worse.
Charles slowly went up to the duchess's room, and sending away all the people who were standing round her bed, on the pretext that they were clumsy and made his mother worse, he shut the door, and they were alone.
Then poor Agnes, forgetting her internal agony when she saw her son, pressed his hand tenderly and smiled through her tears.
Charles, pale beneath his bronzed complexion, his forehead moist with a cold sweat, and his eyes horribly dilated, bent over the sick woman and asked her gloomily-- "Are you a little better, mother ?" "Ah, I am in pain, in frightful pain, my poor Charles.

I feel as though I have molten lead in my veins.

O my son, call your brothers, so that I may give you all my blessing for the last time, for I cannot hold out long against this pain.