THE SWORD DECIDES (continued 4)

The King’s lips curved into a hard smile.

“Think you I am a man easily bewitched, or one to follow the beckoning of a woman’s hand?” he asked proudly.

“Yea, I have always thought so——”

“Listen,” Ludovic interrupted, speaking impressively. “Good my friend—you mistake me, you mistake her—she has been the tool of many men, the puppet of a faction—I think she has done no evil thing in all her life.”

“You did not see her with your brother,” answered Konrad. “You did not mark how she insulted and flouted him——”

Ludovic made a half-turn about the room.

“Am I to bring judgment on her because she did not love her husband?” he demanded. “Well, I wot he was not of her choosing.”

Konrad’s hand fell to the strap of his sword, and clasped there fiercely.

“It is not for you, standing where he died, to make excuses for her or cheapen him to exalt her. I think you came to avenge Andreas, not to champion Giovanna.”

Ludovic looked at him steadily.

“And I do think I know my errand, Konrad of Gottif,” he frowned gloomily. “Most of those who slew him have already paid, and by her commands, mark that, she punished them.”

“Yet somewhat late for her fair fame,” answered the other sternly. “And what of Raymond de Cabane, to whom her sister is promised?”

“She has sworn to send him to me,” said Ludovic, “and I do think she will.”

“The slyer traitress she!” cried Konrad of Gottif. “What blacker thing than this—to sell her accomplice for her pardon?”

“So black a thing no woman would have the courage to do it,” answered Ludovic hotly. “It is proof enough in itself she is innocent. I say she looked at me straightly, she did not change color, no, nor tremble, when I asked for the murderer. Could guilt act so well? And the man has a tongue—would he be loyal to the mistress who had betrayed him—would he not speak—would she not think of that and be afraid?”

“The devil lends great cunning to his servants,” answered Konrad quietly.

The wrathful color darkened in the King’s somber face. His eyes, clear and bright behind the thick dusky lashes, turned a hard look on the Count.

“I say I do believe her,” he said, his soft voice strained with anger. “Would guilt have dared come to me as she came? Nought but innocence would have had such courage—and I do tell you, Konrad of Gottif, that I promised my lady cousin to enter Naples in all peace and friendship if she would keep her word with me as to Raymond de Cabane and her sister—and here in this accursed place, I vow to you, that neither speech nor deeds shall turn me from my given word.”

Konrad looked at the soft, clear-cut face, burning red in the brown cheeks with passion. He noted the stubborn curl of the beautiful mouth, the disdainful swell of the nostril, the eyes proud and masterful, the head held haughtily, and he answered wearily:

“You are not a man easy to advise, Ludovic of Hungary—you are the master—yet I am sorry for the Queen’s sister.”

“What of her?” The King spoke again with natural sweetness, but his proud face contradicted the softness of his speech.

“She is to be your wife—and, good, my liege, the Queen loves her not and she hates the Queen.”

Ludovic was silent. He gazed in front of him at the wide, rich landscape and the purple hills behind which the amber clouds of sunset floated.

“Even though you be very proud and very certain, have a care of this same Queen.”

Ludovic laughed gently.

“Why, would you warn me of my little cousin?”

“I would warn you of the woman who has beguiled you so far so easily,” answered Konrad sourly.

“Oh, hold your peace of that matter,” said the King. “However you rail against her you cannot move me. Think you that even if my little cousin wove spells and enchantments, I should fear them?”

“God wot you are a soft man to women. Take heed of this woman, lest she shame you with her lies.”

“Wearisome is this talk, Konrad of Gottif. If so greatly you mislike my actions—the road lies wide back to Hungary.”

Count Konrad strode to the door and laid his hand on the latch.

“I would rather return to Hungary than see the Queen triumph again—yea, rather return with my vengeance unglutted than watch you meet her in friendship—even though what some said at Buda when you left be repeated and I have to answer, ‘ ’Tis even so.’ ”

He opened the door. It seemed that he would leave in silence, when the King’s soft voice gave him pause.

“And what did they say at Buda?”

“They said, my lord of Hungary, that you did not gather your armies and leave your kingdom to avenge a boy’s blood, but for glory, wanton triumph, and pleasure.”

The King turned swiftly, the gold coat shimmering on the silver light of his armor.

“They lied,” he said languidly. “But go you and confirm their lie if you dare. My motives are not for common questioning. They rest between me and God, and the actions of my sword hand are above any man’s asking.”

Konrad of Gottif descended, without a sound, into the blackness of the narrow stairs.

The sun had set, leaving the chamber in the purple light of twilight, the haggard figures of the combatants on the tapestry appeared to glow with a ghostly life in the uncertain lights and shadows. Under their feet their names were worked in twisted scrolls. Ludovic found himself idly reading them: Prudence, Valor, Fidelity, Humility, trampling on the writhing forms of Pride, Greed, Envy, Sloth, and Malice. The placid little Madonna smiled from the dark bracket. Without the fine stems and thin leaves of the roses quivered dark against the sweep of light fading sky.

Ludovic moved softly down the room, again opened the door of the Queen’s chamber and looked in. Ghostly now it seemed with the heavy blackness cast by the curtains over the dismantled bed, the pearl pale square of light window in the darkness of the wall.

Here she had lain that night while outside her door the King was murdered. Only a short time ago, yet for the inscrutable silence, for the blankness of walls and stones, it might have been a thousand years since blood was shed.

There was no mark nor stain of it, no echo of a desperate struggle, no sound of wild shrieks imprisoned forever, no ghost of a young King lurking in the doorways, nothing but three empty rooms, a stone balcony grown with peaceful roses, and a wide view of an evening landscape. Yet under all his panoply of studded armor and trappings of heavy silk, Ludovic of Hungary shivered as if on the sudden it had fallen cold. A curious sense of mistrust of Giovanna came over him, a feeling in no way the result of Konrad’s words, but rather part of the atmosphere of the place and the sight of that cordless red curtain hanging by her deserted bed, but—he was “a man soft to women.”

He went heavily downstairs, shutting the door carefully, as if it were the gate of a tomb. Below in the dim pillared hall, the abbot and some of the monks waited for him. He handed them the keys.

“Tell me what happened that night,” he said. He seated himself under one of the lancet-shaped windows, and through the scarlet and blue of the pictured saints a faint-colored light fell upon the circlet of curls on his dark head, the folds of the yellow mantle on his shoulders, and the clasp of gold and green at his full throat. It caught also the end of his long pointed steel shoe resting on the flags, and glittered down his greaves.

“Tell me the manner of my brother’s death,” he said, shifting his question into a plainer form.

The Abbot motioned forward the two monks who had recited the psalms by the side of Andreas. One of them commenced speaking, his cowl shrouding his face, his voice low and even.

“Where the King lodged is far from our cells and chapel. We heard nothing save some faint sounds that we thought were the soldiers brawling until Madonna Maria came to seek us.”

“So she had heard something?” questioned Ludovic under his breath.

“Shrieking, she said. She vowed the King was being murdered——”

“Why should she think it was the King?” demanded Ludovic.

“Because of the ill terms that he was on with the Queen and the Queen’s friends. We followed her to the King’s apartment and found it empty. We knocked at the Queen’s chamber and received no answer.”

The speaker was an old man. He interrupted himself with feeble coughs, then continued in his impassive voice:

“Madonna Maria found blood on the floor of the outer chamber and a rope tied to the balcony. We descended to the garden and discovered the King. His head had been smashed with the fall and he lay in his own blood—it was among the syringa bushes. Two of us went to the Queen’s chamber and said, ‘Madonna, what shall we do with the body of your husband?’ She gave no answer. Early in the morning she returned to Naples with the Conte Raymond.”

The old monk coughed again; the gloomy shadows gathered among the grim pillars; the colors faded from the windows.

Through the gloom came the King’s soft voice:

“What rope did they hang him with?”

“The cord from the Queen’s bed.”

Ludovic made a quick movement. “How may you tell?”

“By the piece they left hanging to the balcony. One spake of it to the Queen. She said that early in the day one of them crept into her room and stole it, as it was the only cord in the convent, and their design was to hang the King.”

“That may well be,” said Ludovic quietly.

A little novice lit a thick yellow candle. The pointed red flame leaped up, smoking, and showed the gray arches sweeping into the shadow of the roof, and struck into points of glitter the rings on the King’s hand, his armor, and the gold threads on the scarlet surtout.

In the doorway waited the Hungarians he had brought with him. He rose and called one of them. The novice holding the candle stood in front of the cowled monks gazing at the warriors; as his hands shook, the light shifted vaguely in trailing yellow shapes over the half-seen figures.

Ludovic took his gauntlets from one knight and spoke to another. They heard him laugh in a weary fashion, then the soft bright chinking of gold. He turned and stepped close to the novice, the candle light falling over him.

“Pray for a King unshriven,” he said briefly, “and a foully murdered man.”

He flung his gauntlet at the monk’s feet and the gold pieces with which it was filled rolled over the floor, shining like flame.

Before the little novice rose the image of Humility in the tapestry upstairs, a meek figure in his sad-colored robe, and his companion, Pride. Ludovic of Hungary, flinging his gift to God as if it were a dole to a beggar, minded him of Pride in the arras. He stared at the gorgeous King, and the money rolled unheeded under his long robe.

“How shall such prosper?” whispered the monk next him. “A man of blazoned arrogance.”

The King passed into the garden and mounted in silence. Against the wall leaned Konrad of Gottif, and Ludovic spoke to him.

“What do you muse on, Konrad of Gottif?” His bare right hand tightened on the reins, his eyes held a challenge.

The Count broke forth fiercely: “On the white witch who has so much power—on the folly…” He strangled his words in his throat.

“You were better at home,” said the King unpleasantly. “You and I shall not agree on this question—get back to Hungary.”

He turned the horse’s head and rode down the broad flagged path. When he had passed through the gate he drew rein in the meadow, waiting for his company. A vivid blue twilight encompassed him, the stars seemed to float in the misty heavens, the poplar trees rose gray against this blue, and in their upper leaves a continuous wind rustled. Above the black convent a new moon swung in a wreath of white vapors, like a cut pearl in foam.

Ludovic became aware of a girl coming toward him through the thick grass. The dusky blue light caused her to appear dim yet luminous. She bore a shapely jar on her shoulder; her hair made a dark heap on the nape of her neck. She was singing to herself, but at sight of Ludovic she paused and stared through the twilight.

“A soldier?” she said, and stepped nearer. “I have never seen any here before, though I pass very often.” She laughed. “Did you come to see where Andreas of Hungary was slain?”

Her abrupt mention of his brother caused the King to look at her sharply. She was twirling a scarlet poppy between her white teeth. Her brown dress, carelessly laced, showed her slender throat and shoulders.

“What do you know of him?” asked Ludovic.

She laughed again sullenly. “I hope the Hungarians will burn the Queen,” she said. “Even as the others were burned.”

Then she looked up, saw Ludovic’s face and bearing, and, half-overawed, turned away through the flowers.

But he called after her: “Why should they burn the Queen?”

“Because she is a witch,” came the answer, and the girl hurried out of sight down the sloping fields.

Ludovic’s jaw set in iron lines of resolution. The more he was confronted with popular opinion of the Queen, the more firmly was he determined to abide by his own judgment.

He remembered her youth, her quiet, her most wonderful eyes, the simplicity of her defense, most of all the manner in which she had come to him, appealing to his justice, holding herself at his mercy, abiding his sentence. In that he saw a magnificence of action belonging only to regal innocence. She disdained alike proof and protestation, she appealed to him as a Queen to a King.

His pride was most delicately flattered, his generosity most delicately appealed to, his imagination most sweetly fired by violet eyes and a fine hand that had put in his two vivid carnations. These things were unknown to the crowd that defamed her, but between him and her they were bonds and pledges of an understanding.

When his company joined him and they galloped over the fields toward his camp, his thoughts dwelt on Raymond de Cabane, and all his wrath and vengeance, suddenly dammed, turned aside from the Queen and rebounded upon Conte d’Eboli. He was not of a cruel nature, but he desired a hard death for the man who had murdered his brother. Bitterly the slave should pay for the spilling of royal blood.

As they came to the camp a party of soldiers rode up. By the red, ragged light of torches that flaunted the stars, Ludovic recognized in the foremost rider the small features and amber curls of Carlo di Durazzo.

The two men reined up simultaneously, and the Duke drew his cap from his burnished hair.

“Fair lord, I come from the Queen,” he said in his lazy voice.

Ludovic spurred his horse forward.

“My cousin of Durazzo?” He held out his hand. The Duke was free from even suspicion of complicity in the murder of Andreas. The King desired to show he knew this, and his voice was warm.

Carlo di Durazzo glanced into the proud smiling face the torchlight showed, and his own was dull. He could not refuse his hand, but he gave it coldly.

“They make gallant preparations for your entry into Naples,” he said indifferently. “The Queen sends you her duty—Madonna Maria all fitting greeting.”

His careless tone became almost a sneer. Ludovic, quick to see and to resent even a touch of his own pride in any other man, turned haughty eyes on the cousin who had not responded to his condescension. But Carlo only laughed, and turned in his saddle.

“Bring the Queen’s gift,” he said over his shoulder, then he faced the King again. “Giovanna rejoices at your coming,” he added.

The remark was pointed and Ludovic replied to the meaning.

“And is not my cousin Maria glad?” he asked, though he had never thought of his betrothed since he set foot in Italy.

Carlo eyed him defiantly, hating his pride, his beauty, his splendor, thinking with a strange pang of Maria’s blue eyes and sad, fair face.

“As to that I know not,” he answered. “Some think she has forgotten to do aught but weep.”

A man-at-arms in blue and purple stepped from the ranks and came up to the two leaders. Carlo drew back his great white horse. The soldier went on one knee before the King of Hungary.

“Hold the torches higher, varlet,” commanded the Duke.

Ludovic looked down upon a kneeling man holding a scarlet cushion covered with a gold cloth.

“The Queen’s gift,” said Carlo. A pikeman drew off the cloth. The smoky torchlight revealed a hideous head, swollen, discolored, with blood-stained lips and eyes, lying on the scarlet cushion.

“Raymond de Cabane,” said the pikeman, and lifted the head by the coarse black hair.

Ludovic stared into the dead face of the man he had vowed to kill. So she had kept her word—in this fashion.

“Why did she send him to me dead?” he demanded sternly. “I did not ask it.”

“Never could he have been brought alive,” said Carlo. “He was a mighty fighter.”

In the red torchlight the defaced features appeared to contort with devilish life. Ludovic, gazing at them, thought: “And I had thought to question him.”

The lifeless face mocked him. Neither fear of Hell nor hope of Heaven, not the most fearful of torments, could wring from the Conte Raymond now the name of his accomplices. Those cold lips held forever the secret of the Queen’s guilt or innocence.

In a measure Ludovic felt balked of his vengeance. He could not punish the dead, nay, nor triumph over this disfigured flesh. He could extort nothing from Raymond de Cabane.

The flaring yellow lights staining the purple twilight and revealing the sharp glitter of armor and spear, the horses’ shining flanks, and the men’s faces hidden in the shade of their helms, flickered over the head of Raymond de Cabane and the dark splendor of the King’s face and throat above the gold collar of his mail.

“Take away that carrion,” he said gloomily, “I am cheated of my revenge.”

He rode away without a word to the Italians, and they could hear the soft clank of his harness as he spurred into the purple darkness.

“Think you Maria will favor him?” asked Carlo softly, leaning toward Luigi of Taranto.

That warrior pushed back his red hair.

“Any woman would,” he answered.

Carlo di Durazzo leaned from his horse and looked at the head, replaced now on the scarlet cushion. Sharp blue shadows lay on it; the grinning teeth showed behind a film of blood; on the wrinkled forehead were dull brown stains.

“They have all paid now,” he thought, “unless Giovanna—” He checked his thoughts and glanced up at the great soft stars.

CHAPTER NINETEEN. THE QUEEN WINS

Maria d’Anjou accepted it silently. She did not rail or complain. Through the tangled life of the palace she moved quietly, with apparent little heed of what passed about her.

Giovanna’s triumph had been her defeat. The Queen had snatched herself from ruin by winning in an amazing fashion the man to whom Maria was looking for vengeance, justice, and escape. Raymond de Cabane’s death had filled her with more disgust than relief. She stood aside, watching her sister spin her nets and set them, and felt herself as helpless as ever she had done in the old days. At times Sancia di Renato came and wept on her breast, but Maria was too weary for tears. The long-prayed-for deliverance was at hand. Ludovic of Hungary was coming to Naples, but not for her, for Giovanna’s lures.

She listened in secret misery to the Queen’s elated talk of him; heard her praise his courtesy, his voice, even his face; heard her boast how he had put aside all slanders and old calumnies at her mere word, and how he was to enter Naples as her friend and ally.

He would keep her on her throne, this man who had come to hurl her from it. He would chastise her insolent subjects, and the woman who was his promised wife listened silently.

She had always woven vague hopes and dreams round the King of Hungary. When she was a child she had been taught to regard him as her future lord, and through all the storms and intrigues that had held them apart, her lonely soul had remained constant to his image. She had dreamed of the day when she might go to him, to a strange land that yet would be home. She had been loyal to him in every thought. In her bitterest need she had appealed to him, and now he was coming, her knight, and Giovanna had snatched him from her to serve her own pride and ambition.

Sometimes she thought of him with contempt. What manner of man was he to be so easily persuaded? What love had he for Andreas that he was satisfied so soon?

She tortured herself with doubts of him, scorn of him, and of his blindness, his weakness, while she listened to every word spoken of him and strove to picture to herself this unseen lord of hers.

And on the morning of the day he was to enter Naples, Giovanna, pale with triumph, came to her in her lonely little room.

Maria sat on the end of her bed, her bare arms loosely clasped round the carved post that her chin and her twisted fingers rested on. She wore a flowing red dress open at the throat that appeared to mingle with her unbound chestnut locks, so nearly was it of the same hue. Her eyes, blue as the bay that showed through the open window, were sad and steady beneath her level brows. Giovanna came in silence into the room, and went to the window where the early sunlight glimmered over her from head to foot. She had not spoken alone with her sister since the night of the King’s death, nor made any attempt to seek her out, but Maria showed no surprise nor moved from her still position.

Giovanna was superbly dressed in orange velvet stiff with golden embroidery, but she wore no jewels. Though the castle of Bertrand d’Artois had yielded some treasure to the impoverished court, it had not been sufficient to redeem her gems from the Lombards.

She gave Maria a quick glance out of narrow bright eyes and moistened her palely scarlet lips. “Listen,” she said. “Ludovic of Hungary comes here to-day—you know?”

The beautiful face and the still hands did not alter or move.

“Well, well,” said the Queen quickly. “Why are you silent? What more do you desire? Raymond de Cabane is dead—ye are to be the wife of Ludovic—did ye not always wish it?”

Her fine fingers played restlessly on the stone window frame. Still Maria did not speak.

Giovanna stared at her sister’s face, pearl white in the waving burnished hair, and her own took on a strange look.

“Why of two such men did they give me the blundering boy?” she spoke between quick breaths. “You are very fortunate. Ludovic is a man and King—” She changed her tone. “Come,” she said sharply, “why do you not dress yourself and make ready to meet him?”

Maria was silent.

The Queen, as if some wild impatience had caught her soul, stepped up to her sister and seized her by the shoulder.

“Will you not speak to me?” she asked viciously.

“Why am I to endure your proud mockery?” The calm, fair face changed swiftly. Maria sprang up, wrenched herself free, and drew back to the farthest wall.

“You shall not touch me,” she whispered. She shook back the red hair, and the red dress and her white face and throat gleamed in the dusky corner. Her voice came hoarsely. “And you will keep yourself away from me—if Ludovic of Hungary,” she panted over the name, “is to be my lord, you and he must not—ah!—I am not your puppet, Giovanna.” She clasped her hands fiercely. “And I tell you that if this man is coming to your lures he gets none of me—no! he chooses between us—if he believes you, trusts his brother’s widow—his brother’s—” She caught back the word, but her passionate blue eyes shone with undaunted fire. “I say he gets none of me,” she repeated. “I will be the wife of no man you have in your toils.”

Giovanna stood by the bed, looking down. The sunlight picked out the great coil of auburn hair in the nape of her neck and the gold threads in her stiff orange gown.

“How wildly you speak!” she answered quietly. “Why, what is Ludovic of Hungary to me?” She lifted long, evil eyes. “And what should I be to him—seeing you are his betrothed wife?” She laughed noiselessly, bunching her shoulders to her ears where the snaky curls clustered. “Are you afraid of losing him—with that face?” she sneered. “With your pure life and your pure beauty and your rich dowry, are you afraid of me, who am old ere I am young, faded ere I have bloomed—spoiled and tarnished and broken?”

Her voice sank, she seated herself on the end of the bed, huddled together, and flung her arms up over her face.

“Ruined!” she wailed. “Broken, body and soul—old—yes, I am old, Maria, and my heart is stunned, bruised, and dying.”

She sank face downward on the red coverlet and sobbed wildly, pressing her hands to her forehead.

Maria came from the corner and gazed at her, but with no softening in her face. Fair and cold and pitiless she watched the heaving shoulders and bowed head.

At last Giovanna lifted her head, with her fine hair tumbled to her gold-girdled waist and her eyes wild and red.

“No man will look on me with love,” she said fiercely. “I am damaged goods, though I am on the market. God wot, there are ugly things said of me even loyalty cannot be deaf to, and things believed a saint could not live down—you need not be afraid of me, Maria——”

Her sister answered:

“I am afraid of nothing. But witches and evil things have gained of times the love of honest men.”

Giovanna laughed miserably.

“Do you think I have bewitched him, this Ludovic of yours? What do I want with him? He is no finer knight than Luigi of Taranto, whom I might have by lifting my hand——”

Maria spoke scornfully:

“Well ye wot he is a King, and ye are in his power—what could Luigi of Taranto do for ye that this man could?”

The Queen raised her head. Her tear-stained face wore a look of cunning.

“So you think I am coming between your lord and you—you are jealous of me—you are not very sure of that maiden’s face of yours—well, well.” Her sharp little tongue passed over her lips. She rose with her hands in her fallen hair. “Perhaps I shall try to turn him to my purposes, Maria—but you who are so much the fairer have the greater chance.”

She smiled mockingly and tapped her little foot on the floor. Maria turned her face away with a sound of loathing.

“You and I have naught but hate in common,” she said. “Your insult does not hurt.”

Giovanna’s changes of mood had grown bewilderingly quick of late. She laughed now, freshly, and spoke in a light mockery: “Change your gown, Maria; I tell you he is not the man to admire beauty in a simple dress.”

The slow color came into Maria’s averted face. “Be assured I do not seek his admiration.”

Giovanna laughed again.

“As if you had not dreamed of him at nights these many months!”

Then there was the sound of her heavy dress on the floor and the click of the latch. Maria, with a hotter red in burning cheeks, turned to see her pass quietly into the corridor.

The door closed slowly.

Maria d’Anjou stood erect and stared at her own beauty in the mirror that hung from her waist. Eyes and lips were scornful.

She scorned them both—the woman who was the deceiver, the man who was deceived. Love! What did they know of it? She had her ideal of that and a face fair enough to bring her dreams true.

She dropped the mirror.

Ludovic of Hungary! She had had her thoughts of him, but she would not woo him now by one word, one look. Let this hope go as others had gone—pricked bubbles.

There was the convent; there was the tomb waiting in Santa Chiara. She thought of both with a grim pleasure. It would be pleasant to leave proudly the world to which she had never been attuned; it would be pleasant to lie at rest in the dim, rich church, leaving a fair memory behind.

Presently she drew a little key from a ribbon round her neck and, turning, opened her coffer and took out a casket from among her fragrant clothes.

Slowly she turned the key; slowly she raised the lid.

There lay the auburn curl and the scrap of embroidery taken from the King’s dead hand, his own stained locks, his unfinished letter to his brother, the snapped chain with its trinkets.

“How if I were to show you these, my lord of Hungary?” she asked bitterly. “What would you think of her innocence?”

Was he so weak a man that Giovanna’s witch face and slow-glancing, bright eyes could overweigh with him proofs like this?

As she locked them away again she wondered, and felt her blood grow cold and her face hard with contempt. She had done with it all, she said in her heart, she was aloof, apart from the world, she had awakened from dreams of Ludovic of Hungary and was disdainful of herself that she had ever set him in her thoughts.

In the wide, warm window seat, full in the gold and purple light of early morning, she knelt and told her ivory beads. Even the streaming sunshine could not bring animation or color into her quiet countenance, though the stiff waves of hair turned back from her smooth brow, and falling beside her curved cheeks shone like living gold.

When she had finished her rosary she looked down at Naples lying in a haze of heat with the shimmering bay beyond, and the purple coast line of Sorrento and the vivid, blinding glitter of the square roofs set amid the palms and cypress trees that threw blue shadows over the white house fronts.

And as she gazed the bells of San Gonnaro and Santa Chiara burst into a peal that rang over town and bay and was echoed swiftly by the lesser churches.

Maria called to mind how, upon the entry of Andreas, these bells were tolling for the old King’s death; and how, two months later, they had tolled for him when his shapeless corpse was laid to rest beside the altar where he should have been crowned.

And now his brother came to the sound of the joy peals, to meet in friendship the woman—Maria checked her thought, even to herself she could not frame the word that told the thing her sister was. She kept her ghastly knowledge as close as Giovanna herself, a secret too terrible to be put into words or even definite thought.

She put her hair into a purple silk net and fastened it with ruby pins. Then, unsmiling and cold, she descended to the great hall.

There also she must think of Andreas; how here he had first set foot in the palace; how here he had feasted his Hungarians. In this hall had Giovanna held her mad masque; from here Guilia di Terliggi and Filippa da Morcane had been dragged to death and torture.

The high gallery was hung with fine silk tapestries from France. The ruby and topaz, amethyst and emerald hues of the window cast rays of colored light across the dusky, scented atmosphere. Under the canopied dais stood Giovanna, slender, stooping, with painted lips and long brilliant eyes; hard color in her dress with its trailing embroideries and in the orange ribbon binding the curling auburn hair. Against the vivid texture of her gown her shoulders and arms showed a dead white where the fantastic cut and laced sleeves revealed them; on her brow, was the one jewel left to Naples—a low filigree gold crown.

About her stood the gorgeous Italian courtiers: Carlo di Durazzo, in white and wine color; Bertrand gleaming in emerald green, Di Perlucchi in pure scarlet, Luigi of Taranto in azure and silver. Behind the Queen, noticeable among the ladies, showed the rose-hued beauty and pale gold locks of Sancia di Renato. She was clad in a gown of shifting mauve and violet. Her eyes lifted timidly to Maria, who came silently and stood beside her. The rest of the hall was filled with soldiers, servants and pages.

All were silent save Carlo and Di Perlucchi, who whispered together slighting criticisms of the whole pageant. Disapproved of the Queen’s dress, sneered at Ludovic of Hungary, and consoled each other’s jealousy with bitter remarks and scornful laughter.

Once Giovanna looked at them sharply and frowned, but she did not speak.

The doors were opened wide on to the steps, and a shaft of clear sunlight fell across the floor and wall. Maria looked over the Queen’s shoulder. She saw in the courtyard great banners bearing the double eagles of Hungary; the hard glitter of spears, shining armor and the gorgeous garments of pages and footmen.

The trumpets sounded, then were still. Shadows crossed the bar of sunlight; the halberdiers guarding the entrance fell back. A man stepped into the hall, then hesitated, confused by the dark after the sunlight.

The Queen went a little forward to meet him and paused under the soft violet light of one of the windows, Ludovic of Hungary saw her, gleaming in jewel-like color, and strode up. His firm tread was the one sound in the expectant assembly.

“My cousin,” murmured Giovanna.

He put his hand in hers and, slightly leaning forward, looked into her face.

To each the other looked so different from the remembrance they had that there was wonder in their eyes.

Ludovic was dressed with an ostentation of splendor. His heavy, trailing purple mantle, thrown back, showed a gold and scarlet vest stiff with gems. Round his black locks was a circlet, to which was fastened at one side a large plume of peacocks’ feathers, after the manner of the German knights. Different this from the man in the plain mail who had spoken to her in the farm kitchen; different also was she from the pale woman with loosened hair who had pleaded with him there.

The Queen was the first to speak:

“Welcome—in peace—to Naples, my lord the King.”

She withdrew her hand. There was a flash of jewels as he loosened his sword from its gleaming case and held the bare blade between them. The purple light ran down the steel and glimmered like a star on the point.

“Naples and Hungary shall kiss the sword,” said Ludovic in his soft voice. “Set your lips upon the blade, my cousin, the Queen.”

She lifted her stiff dress with cold, white hands and leaned forward. Woman and sword dazzled together as she laid her lips to the hard steel. One of her auburn curls fell across the handle. The King’s intense eyes were always upon her, as if no one else was in the room. Then, as she lifted her head, he leaned his dark face and kissed the sword where she had kissed it.

The trumpets, with a mighty clamor, called witness to the pledge. Ludovic of Hungary swung his sword, an arc of light, and sheathed it, and again he gave his hand to the Queen and walked with her to the dais.

The two princes of his own family, Carlo of Duras and Luigi of Taranto, went on one knee to welcome them to Naples. Luigi he raised and embraced; Carlo he received haughtily, remembering that knight’s demeanor at the camp.

Carlo now, as then, looked at him indifferently.

“Madonna Maria awaits you, Ludovic of Hungary,” he said, and looked to where she stood in front of the gathered ladies.

At that Giovanna gazed musingly on the King. “Maria!” she said, and held out her hand to her sister.

But Maria ignored it, and, stepping down from the dais, fronted the King.

So did Maria d’Anjou come face to face with her long-promised husband and the hero of her lonely thoughts. So, with cold heart and face, did she know him, for all these thoughts had pictured him, among all men there—the King.

As for him, her great, passionless beauty took him with a quick surprise and pleasure, though her unmoved demeanor held neither invitation nor welcome.

But Ludovic of Hungary was never at a loss with women.

“You and I should know each other by report,” he said, and smiled. “Madonna—you have heard of me?”

Her great, blue eyes gazed at him straightly, breaking through the lightness of his manner. “Has not my liege had letters from me that prove I know him?” she said.

At this reference to his brother and the object of his coming, Ludovic looked at her keenly. Here was different metal to Giovanna. She held herself erect, without hint of fear or deference; rather as if she judged and condemned him. He saw it and hardened, but merely said, in that treacherous voice, that was a caress even when the words belied it: “Come and kiss me, my wife that is to be—we have waited long for this meeting.”

“Over-long, my liege,” answered Maria d’Anjou steadily, in a low voice only he would hear, for the others had fallen back. “And my kisses have spoiled with keeping.” She returned to her old place on the dais, with a face marble pale, marble cold.

Her coldness stung Ludovic, effacing the impression her beauty had made. He knew all eyes were upon them; he knew every one had heard his words and gathered her refusal, if not her answer, and he was not a man to take a repulse lightly or humbly from a woman. With a flush in his face, he turned to Giovanna. Her long, narrow eyes, her rouged lips, met his glance with a quiet smile. Maria’s beauty passed from his mind beside the strange loveliness of her sister. As they proceeded to the room where the feast was prepared, he had eyes for the Queen and the Queen alone.

Carlo di Durazzo came beside Maria.

“Do you mark them?” he whispered.

Maria looked where the gilded blue-green of Ludovic’s plumes waved beside her sister’s auburn curls, and she thought of the casket that held one of those same curls, and put her hand over the key lying warm in her bosom.

The gay and splendid crowd, Italians and Hungarians, followed the King and Giovanna, but Maria heard a Hungarian whisper bitterly:

“Our King should remember Andreas—he came for the blood of this wanton woman, not her smiles!”

CHAPTER TWENTY. SANCIA DI RENATO

Above the bay, which was of a peculiar light pearl color, low, dusky, yellowish clouds rolled, spreading slowly and obscuring the pale, dazzling sky. Overhead, the sun burned in a white brilliancy, changing the hue of everything into the dusty blaze of heat.

So hot it was, the slightest movement was an exertion, and a great languor wrapped every living thing.

By the marble terrace in the garden, where the shriveled golden leaves of the vines and the glossy green of the citron afforded spaces of pale shadow, Maria d’Anjou sat on the low stone seat, her figure leaning droopingly against the white balustrade.

At her feet, Carlo reclined along the marble flags and, resting against the stem of the citron, looked up at her still beauty.

She gave no sign that she saw him. Her languid eyes were turned toward the bay, her hands lay idle on her lap; the trembling shapes of the vine leaves played in shadow over the warm ivory hue of her throat and the glittering waves of her gorgeous hair. Her heavy breathing lifted the gold borders on her breast steadily. Carlo put his hand out to touch the shining hem of her crimson kirtle that swept the marble, and felt his heart beat faster.

On his own purple habit the sun beat, and his shadow lay like a violet stain on the flags.

Nearer rolled the dun-colored clouds. Slowly over the sun gathered a veil, and the boats within the bay began to make for the shore. Carlo gazed at Maria until cheek and heart were burning.

“Maria,” he said, in a low voice.

Her shadow stirred about him as she moved and turned the full depth of her blue eyes on his expectancy.

“Know you where the Queen is?” whispered Carlo.

Languidly she answered:

“Yea, I do.”

Sun and shadow were becoming merged in one dusky golden color; the doubles of leaves and tree waved heavily in faint yellow hues. A little burning breeze from the bay stirred Maria’s dress.

“She is with Ludovic of Hungary,” said Carlo.

Slowly came her answer, as from heights of wearied calm.

“Has she not always been with him since he came to Naples a month ago?”

Rage against the woman, contempt for the man, shook Carlo.

“And you endure it?”

“What else?” she answered, and the shrouded sun quivered over her still, fair hands.

“Yet you are to be his Queen,” breathed Carlo.

“I am not made to woo, my cousin,” said Maria. “If a man cannot see that I am fair and noble I will not follow him to prove my worth before reluctant eyes.”

“The King is bewitched, or a fool,” said Carlo hotly.

But she answered placidly:

“He follows his fancy.”

Carlo pushed back the damp curls from his moist forehead.

“And if I followed mine—this King and I would come to the crossing of swords.”

A faint glow shone in Maria’s still eyes.

“An’ I wanted a champion, cousin—” She fell on silence. The dusky clouds eclipsed the fair sky and dulled the bright surface of the bay; the trees bowed and trembled in the great heat. Maria held out a steady hand to Carlo. His eager fingers clung to it, and he pressed hot lips to her cool palm.

“Oh, let me be,” she said, with a tremor of tenderness in her voice.

“God wot, I will not see you slighted by Ludovic,” cried Carlo.

“I care not,” she answered. “If he finds no pleasure in my company, I am happier alone—ah, the heat!” and her bosom heaved with her pants for air.

Carlo held her slender fingers against his smooth cheek.

“It does not hurt you?” he asked breathlessly. “Maria, you have not grown fond of this straying lord of yours?”

“ ’Tis no question of fondness either side,” she said; then she smiled. “I once had thoughts of Ludovic of Hungary—I have amended them.”

She drew her hand away from Carlo, and he half resumed his lazy manner.

“Do you know that he has redeemed the Queen’s jewels from the Lombards?”

Maria gave a little start.

“Has he so forgotten Andreas?” she murmured.

“And he has paid her troops,” continued Carlo, “scornful of what they say in Hungary.”

“Oh, Andreas!” repeated Maria.

Carlo laughed.

“He does not think of his brother when he sits by his brother’s wife. By God’s might! I have thought of late that she is not so innocent——”

Maria checked him with a low cry, and sat up, confronting him with sparkling eyes.

“Do not think it,” she said hurriedly. “Do not breathe it. Would it not be too awful a thing if—ah, Madonna!—if a man should come to love his brother’s murderess?”

At the ring of horror in her voice, Carlo’s flushed cheek paled. She went on, unheeding of him, while behind her the clouds gathered and darkened over the bay.

“His kin—his blood,” she said. “What if she had planned the thing? What if those hands he kisses Andreas had clung to in vain for pity? What if she knew while she smiled on Ludovic that her soul was red with his brother’s death? Ah, better for both that he should slay her than love her—better his hate and punishment should purge her into Paradise than her love woo him into Hell!”

She rose. At the same instant Carlo leaped to his feet.

“What do you know?” he cried.

She clung to the marble balustrade.

“Nothing!” she said. “Nothing—only I bid you chain your thoughts, lest they grow wild and mad.”

Land, sea and sky were wrapped in the glowing yellow haze of the oncoming thunder. Maria stood beneath the flame-hued vine leaves, and her crimson dress blended with her vivid hair, while the gold on hem and bosom glittered like living flame.

“I know nothing,” she repeated hoarsely. “What should I know?” Her fine fingers touched his purple sleeve. “What matter is it of ours? I think it is not our place to judge, though as surely as yonder storm sweeps over the land, judgment will come—for all of us.”

Carlo thought of Guilia di Terliggi and shuddered. He stared at Maria’s imperious beauty, and could not find words.

She spoke again, in a gentle voice:

“Will you leave me now, Carlo. I am coming in soon, but I pray you let me be alone a little while——”

She could always command him. Still in silence, he left her.

There were no shadows now, but one great gloom over everything. The waters of the bay had fallen treacherously smooth, and there was an ominous stillness in the trees, as if they held themselves in readiness for the oncoming shock of rain. Maria looked over the somber prospect and thought of her lie to Carlo.

“I know nothing,” she had said, when she knew everything; when it stared before her as a hideous fact day and night; when she carried on her bosom the key of that casket—she had lied with her lips as she lied every hour with her demeanor; lied with her speech as she had lied with her silence.

But even now she might break from her stillness into a fury of revenge and bring down Giovanna from her very height of triumph. It was in her power. Yet something sealed her lips. Even to bring Ludovic to her feet, even for the sake of that poor dead she could not bring herself to be the instrument of vengeance. As she gazed into the wild sky, she knew she would never speak.

Never! She stood aside from it all. She would wrap her bruised heart in silence, and let God do as He would with Giovanna.

Then, as she stood there, the tears rose bitterly to her eyes; her gorgeous head drooped. She shivered beneath the black and yellow clouds and hid her face in her hands—and wept in a slow, sick fashion. Oh, love and hope that beckoned from the land of dreams, and at the first touch died! Oh, longing that is such a sharp agony and loneliness, that is most miserable! Oh, my King, my idol, that has broken at my feet!

For those things she wept, and behind the lurid lift of flame from Vesuvius, the thunder gave the first roll, while the lightning sprang from the clouds to the water.

That sharp pang of fire penetrated her locked hands. She looked up to see the great mountain belching smoke, and the clouds rolling low upon the bay.

A few drops of rain fell through the vine leaves, that were rustling in a dry fashion above her head. She turned back toward the palace. Again the thunder, sweeping nearer, and the lightning, like a rift in the angry heavens, while about her pattered the rain on the leaves, and the flowers bent and shivered.

As she gained the palace, she heard the unmistakable soft laugh of Ludovic, and saw a group of people seated within the open, arcaded balcony, that opened on to the garden.

Giovanna was there, glowing in scarlet through the shadows, with her painted lips unsmiling, and her watchful, violet eyes on the storm-swept garden. Ludovic was there, with the gilded colors of the peacock feathers shining above the purple luster of his hair, and his arm resting on the cushion behind the Queen.

And as Maria went in noiselessly at the open door, she heard him say:

“What if the boors do rise, Giovanna. Am I not master in Naples? God wot, I will burn their city about their ears if they are not silent.”

Maria knew that the Neapolitans were rioting under the tyranny of the Hungarian army that had settled in their city, and the King’s words caused her to think upon it. Giovanna was holding her throne by aid of the man who had come to shake her from it, but how long would it last? How long would Hungary endure to be left kingless while Ludovic delayed abroad?

She reached her little chamber, so darkened now with the storm she could hardly see, and fell on her knees and prayed passionately, to the accompaniment of the gathering thunder.

Oh, to be out of it all! To be at peace with Andreas in the sainted quiet of Santa Chiara!

Presently she rose and brought out her casket. She would not speak, and she would destroy these horrid proofs, so that there should be no more temptation. In the ghastly light she opened the case and laid the contents on her bed.

If Ludovic could read that last letter! If he could see these torn curls, and that other lock drawn from the hand of the murdered man—would he have so forgotten Andreas, that no wrath, no horror, could be aroused?

With these thoughts, she hung over her poor relics of the dead King. The sound of the lifted latch, a light step, caused her to start violently. She had never reckoned on an interruption.

It was Sancia di Renato.

“I was alone in the Queen’s chamber,” she began, “and frightened of the thunder——”

Then she came to the bed and saw what lay on it.

In a second, before Maria could speak or make any effort to conceal what she was about, Sancia had seen.

“Oh!” she said. “Oh, Mary’s might, the piece of the Queen’s gown!”

And she sunk on the edge of the bed and stared at the Princess.

With a trembling hand, Maria replaced the objects in the casket. A clap of thunder shook the room, and the rain was driven in a sheet against the narrow casement.

“What you have seen without my desire,” she said unsteadily, “by my desire you will forget.”

But Sancia had seen enough. Her own suspicions, her own knowledge, were confirmed.

“So you knew?” she gasped, dazed by the suddenness of the discovery. “Where did you find—that——”

Maria rose.

“I know nothing, and you know nothing,” she answered. “What you may have seen by breaking in on me—take it you have not seen.” She locked the casket, replaced it in the coffer, and went to the window.

Sancia sat still, on the bed, silenced. She had the wit to encroach no farther on the anger of the Princess, but also wit to gather the full meaning of what she had seen.

Presently the stillness of the red-clad figure gazing out on the storm frightened her. She slipped from the bed and crept up to Maria.

“Madonna,” she said timidly.

Maria d’Anjou looked down into the lovely face, and the color overspread her own.

“What do you desire of me?” she asked.

Sancia smiled.

“May I talk with you?” she asked.

Obediently Maria seated herself in the stiff chair by the window and rested her weary head against the wall. Sancia, in her soft, caressing fashion, settled herself on a little stool at the side of the Princess, where the stormy light from the casement fell over her delicate loveliness.

Her skin was of the warm whiteness of a rose that is pink in the heart. Her hair, pale gold color, supposed to show royal blood; her eyes, infinitely soft, the hue of hazy summer skies. Intense earnestness was in them as she gazed up at Maria; a deep and painful color rose to her cheeks.

“Will you take me with you to Hungary?”

Maria could understand the request, but not the blush.

“Best go home, Sancia,” she answered mournfully.

“No,” said Sancia faintly. “Take me with you when you leave Naples.”

There was a pause while Maria thought of the slight chance there was that she herself would ever see Hungary, and the thunder rolled overhead. Then Sancia spoke again, in a still lower voice:

“When will you be married, Madonna?”

“When God wills,” answered Maria, and looked away.

“The last tournament,” said Sancia breathlessly. “Was it not glorious—were you not proud of the King, Madonna?”

Maria was silent. She knew that Ludovic’s showy qualities, his splendid horsemanship, his gorgeous clothes, his lavishness with money, his beautiful voice, his singing, his dancing—all these things, that made him the most magnificent knight in Naples, had their effect with her, despite the calm showing of her judgment that they were but the gilding of arrogant pride, and not in themselves noble.

She might despise herself for it, but she, also, had been moved by the obvious graces that won the crowd.

Therefore she was silent.

“He threw the Prince of Taranto twice,” continued Sancia. “And yesterday, when you were not there, he drove three horses round the courtyard, mounted on the midmost——”

“He has princely accomplishments,” said Maria briefly. Her heart winced to hear his praises; she kept her face away.

“Madonna,” came Sancia’s sweet voice. “Whom will the Queen marry? Bitterly, I am afraid of her——”

“Hush!” cried Maria, turning round. “Be silent about these things, even to your own heart. Oh, sweetheart, go home to Padua.”

Again Sancia’s face crimsoned from brow to chin.

“I would go with you to Hungary,” she pleaded.

“And leave your family and your country?” questioned Maria mournfully.

“Yea—so I might be with you.”

Maria suddenly caught her to her heart and kissed the fair face.

“When I am Ludovic’s Queen,” she said wildly, “we will speak of this again.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. THE QUEEN’S LOVER

“We have lost our way,” said Giovanna.

She came through the trees slowly, holding up the front of her long green dress. The cool, rich leaves and moss were spangled with sunlight, that flickered also over her hair as she moved.

King Ludovic paused and looked back at her.

“I never heeded the path,” he said.

“Nor I.” She frowned over her words, and they proceeded in silence.

It was hours since they had wandered from the gay encampment of the hunting party, where the brilliant courtiers had sat round a feast, spread on the shady grass, or roamed in couples through the trees, and the sun was past the zenith.

Giovanna stopped, still with a frown on her delicate brows.

“I am tired, Ludovic.”

Everything about them was green, from the ferns at their feet to the transparent beech leaves over their heads. The Queen’s gown, also of that color, blended with the foliage, but Ludovic of Hungary was clad in a blood-purple that blazed against it.

He looked at her sideways.

“There is a building of some fashion ahead,” he answered her, and moved forward again down the soft glade.

Giovanna followed. He made no attempt to break her sudden silence.

They came upon the building he had discerned. It was a mere ruin. Three slender Roman pillars of weather-stained marble, with the moss green round the bases, the portion of a wall holding an empty niche, and, adjoining this elegant ancient beauty, this defaced temple to some old-world deity, a rude shed of wattled plaster, placed there in a later age. This, also, had fallen into decay. Gaping walls and a broken roof showed a wooden crucifix and a font for holy water, long since dry, or filled only with the raindrops.

So the two dead temples jostled each other. The mud walls of the Christian God leaning against the enduring shaft of the Pagan, both peaceful in the lonely mellow sunshine; each grown alike with maidenhair fern and the faint wood violets. They were over everything, these violets, in such great clusters that they outnumbered the blades of grass. Here and there, among the blue haze of color, arose the dead-white flower of a narcissus, with the gold crown on its heart, and under the crucifix twisted a blossomless brier rose, the long, thorny stems covered in young spring green.

Giovanna, stooping and putting aside the flowers, disclosed a fallen Jupiter, almost hidden in the grass.

She seated herself on his smooth pedestal, and smiled up at Ludovic.

“What have we been talking of this while?” she asked dreamily, and her left hand drooped by her side among the violets, as if it trailed in water.

“Of Kings and Queens,” answered Ludovic, his sweet voice suited to the lonely loveliness of the spot and the once sacred ground on which they stood, “of statecraft and wars and kingdoms.”

He leaned against one of the marble pillars, and its narrow shadow lay over him and fell straightly to her feet.

“Of what is the quality of greatness?” she mused, and she turned from the living King to gaze through the grass at the placid face of the dead god.

Ludovic laughed.

“If one might know, Giovanna!”

“To rule,” she murmured, “always to rule—above the world—not of it.”

Her slight figure showed in fine lines through the straight gown. Her white throat rose above a broad band of gold; round the turn of her cheek hung the soft, shining auburn curls, escaping from their gilt net. Suddenly she lifted those eyes, that were of a purple more deep and wonderful than the violets, and stared into the King’s gazing face.

“Why do you not return to Hungary?” she asked. “Why do you not take your wife and go?”

“Why do we any of us linger in the pleasant places?” he answered, in no way disconcerted by the sudden coldness of her tone.

A white butterfly darted between them, and settled on the Queen’s hand.

“I think you must go,” she said, still gazing at him intently. “Can there be two rulers in Naples, and none in Hungary?”

His bright color rose.

“Are you jealous of me, Giovanna?” he demanded.

She considered a moment.

“I am, perhaps, afraid of you—you have done too much for me.” She trembled, and the white butterfly rose from her hand.

He knew as well as she that she and Naples both were in his power. He smiled easily, and the clear hazel eyes sparkled behind the soft lashes.

“You stay over-long,” she continued in a low voice. “People make a talk of it—and in my own city I am not Queen——”

He lifted his splendid head, and the sun glittered down the peacock feathers in his cap. “Maria is not so impatient,” he remarked.

“You will not consider her,” returned Giovanna. “She is the woman you have always asked for—the wife you demanded of me.”

Ludovic suddenly moved toward her, trampling down the violets.

“Giovanna! Giovanna!” he said, his soft voice impatient. “Why will you talk of these things?” He flung himself beside her on the fallen statue. “Giovanna—you must understand me.”

He paused. She sat silent, with her clear profile toward him.

“God wot,” continued the King, “you are the most regal and proud woman I have ever seen—you are a glorious thing, and had you not been called my brother’s wife——”

A silence again, while the white butterfly fluttered over the violets.

Then Ludovic took her cold wrists and turned her round to face him. “I think I love you,” he said, and laughed.

She stared at him, with no sign of discomposure or surprise. “I do not understand,” she answered.

He laughed again.

“You have understood this month past, if you are a woman, and not a witch.”

The blank look passed from her eyes as if by a great effort she forced herself to comprehend.

“You love me?” she said slowly. Doubt and suspicion crossed her face.

Ludovic of Hungary waited for the moment he had resolved to enjoy since he first saw the cold, young Queen; the moment when he, invincible, in love as in arms, should see her, who had not turned her head for any, tremble into confession, submission—a very woman, after all.

But there was no response in her face. For an instant her eyes narrowed with a look of calculation and cunning.

“Have you given me my Kingdom because you love me?” she murmured.

“Scarcely would you call it hate—or policy?” he whispered. His clasp on her hands tightened, and her cold countenance flushed with some feeling.

“And what else would you do for me?” she said breathlessly.

The dark, rich-colored face was brought nearer to hers; his voice dropped, tempered to the most throbbing softness of passion:

“All that a man and a King may,” he answered.

For an instant her eyes shone with triumphant fire. Then her mood clouded with discontent.

“How do you love me?” she demanded, in a voice almost scornful. “This love is a strange thing.”

“Giovanna!” he answered, and the proud blood darkened in his cheek. “Giovanna!”

She appeared to divine that his fiery arrogance was rising at her coldness, and fell, though in a bewildered way, into excuses.

“God wot, my liege—this is no talk for us. I am the Queen. Maria——”

Ludovic interrupted. He held her hands down on the knees of her green gown and spoke quickly. “Let Maria take her cold face into a convent. Ye are the Queen, and as such I speak to ye—a King to a Queen—my regal cousin, ye understand me?”

Her face was blank with the ignorance of a child, he thought she lured him on, and he laughed.

“Come, little enchantress—teach me how they woo in Italy, since my Hungarian fashion cannot move yet——”

Her hands strove under his.

“What do you mean—what do you mean?”

Fear and dislike were in her tone. She drew back stiffly, crushing into the tall violets. The King’s mouth set in unpleasant lines of hardness.

“What have ye meant these weeks I have been in Naples? Have I not done great things for you—and to be flouted?”

She understood the covert threat as she had not the open love, and she faced it as a thing familiar.

“Yes, yes.” Her great eyes widened. “Ye have done everything for me.” She was silent a space, grasping a new idea; then, “this is the price?” she said, and her hands became still in his grasp.

Ludovic of Hungary gazed at her curiously. “Do ye mock me, Giovanna?” he asked.

Her smooth, oval face was passionless.

“What do you want of me?” she returned. “I do think you have bought me by giving me my realm.”

He took his hands from hers.

“This is a strange wooing,” he said. “I think you are no woman——”

“Do I put it too plainly?” she asked, with brightening eyes. “I am not quick at courtly speech——”

He bore down her words with sudden impatience in his soft voice.

“Giovanna—in one syllable—could ye love me?”

His breath was almost on her face. She could not escape his magnificent presence, as he leaned on the fallen stone god toward her.

“Ye are a knight any woman might love,” she answered.

Baffled, he drew back a little.

“Ye practice a deft evasion,” he said. “But ye have no page to trifle with. Hark to me!” he caught her arm, compelling her attention. “I, Ludovic of Hungary, have said—I do think I love ye——”

With the cunning of the helpless, she sought to soothe him.

“Aye, give me a little time—I have never thought of those things.”

She put her hands to her forehead.

“Ye play with me!” cried the King. “And ye play with a man who will not suffer it——”

He rose and turned from her.

Seeing his anger, the living fear sprang into her eyes. She thought of her kingdom, what this man could do for her—what he had done and might undo. After all, was not this what she had wanted?

“Ludovic!” she cried desperately.

He half turned, but would not move toward her. She sprang up, stumbled, caught his arm and clung to it.

“Why—I love you,” she said in a low, terrified voice. “Do not turn from me, my cousin—I will be very obedient——”

“Is this the truth at last?” he asked, with a hard little smile, “or do ye seek to fool me?”

She closed her eyes and laid her white face against the purple of his rich habit.

“Judge me mercifully,” she whispered, “for I am yours by all ways.”

The King looked down into her curious, fair face, pallid between the auburn locks, and his feeling for her, fanned by the strangeness of her reception of his wooing and her final complete submission, verged almost on to the love he spoke of.

“Kiss me, Giovanna,” he said under his breath, yet imperiously.

She opened her eyes and lifted her face obediently, yet, when he bent his head, she drew back sharply before his lips could touch hers.

Instantly she recovered herself.

“Never have any kissed me before,” she said, wild-eyed; “woman or man.”

Ludovic smiled.

“Ye are a strange lady, and likely lie—yet if it be truth, I am not displeased to be the first.”

As he spoke, he lightly kissed her cheek, almost before she was aware.

She stood still a moment, and such swift horror seized her that she shrunk together like a blasted thing—one other had kissed her—Andreas of Hungary, red with wounds, a few minutes before his death. His words came back to her, blotting out the present:

“I could have killed you if I would—remember that afterward!”

The old, fearful consciousness of madness shook her. She groped, in a dusky unreality of horror. The blood beat like drums in her ears, and her limbs trembled.

“Mass! Are ye ill?” cried Ludovic of Hungary. He took her slim body in his arms, and drew her frail weight on to his heart.

She struggled to regain a hold on herself, and half thrust him off.

“You and I as lovers!” she cried, and laughed deliriously.

He thought she referred to her sister.

“Why not?” he answered. “We are not as other people. We can mask it with the rest, but afterward as King and Queen—and there are other ways—the Pope.”

A little sound, like a small animal in pain, came sharply across his words. He paused, looked round and saw nothing.

“A hawk hath found a prey,” he said.

But Giovanna had drawn away from him and was gazing toward the shattered white pillars. There stood Sancia di Renato, the setting sun illuminating her gentle loveliness.

The two women looked at each other across the space of violets. The King alone was at his ease.

“Have ye come to search for us?” he asked. “God wot, we lost our way some time since—the Queen and I.”

With his hand on his hip, he smiled at her, but Sancia di Renato turned her face away.

“They have all missed you, my liege,” she said, and her fingers pulled fiercely at the brier rose beside her. “They are behind me—the rest——”

Ludovic, standing midway between her and the Queen, answered her with a deepening smile and a little gleam in the hazel eyes behind the thick, dusky lashes:

“You hurt your hand, Madonna—on the thorns.”

She swung round, her exquisite young face flushed from brow to chin.

“It is not my hand that—hurts.”

He marked her swiftly rising bosom, her soft, trembling mouth, her wet eyes, her agitated voice, with an interested gaze.

Giovanna, a mute spectator, gazed at Sancia with vacant eyes and troubled brows, and pulled at her slim fingers.

Behind them the sun was dazzling the color out of trees and flowers, burning in the last blaze before its setting. Before them a slow cavalcade was wending down the grassy paths toward the ruin, and broken laughter, jangling bells and low voices came to the three in the ancient temple.

Sancia di Renato turned away abruptly. Through the quivering leafage Duke Carlo showed, leading the Queen’s white horse.

Ludovic laughed gayly, half at the Queen, half to himself.

But Giovanna kept her eyes on the ground and twisted her fingers vacantly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. THE CASKET

Maria rose from her knees in her little chapel, stiff from praying.

The pointed west window glowed in the last glory of the sunset, and patches of faint bright color lay over the stone altar and the smooth stone flags.

Maria kissed her rosary and her psalter and laid them in her bosom; then, with the calm step and composed face of a nun, opened the little door that led into her bedchamber.

The place was full of shadows—about the canopied bed and the corners, peaceful, and perfumed with incense from the chapel.

And leaning against one of the high dark chairs was Sancia di Renato.

Maria paused with a low sound of surprise, and Sancia lifted a distorted face and slipped from the chair to her knees without a word.

The Princess’s heart turned sick with half-formed dreads and terrors. The girl’s look of passionate misery, her attitude as she knelt there, her disordered dress and hair, her silence, seemed omens of disaster beyond bearing.

“What has happened?” she demanded. “God’s name, get up and speak to me——”

She stooped, almost unconsciously, and caught the shrinking shoulder. In a second supplicating arms were about her and a hot face pressed against her bosom, while a passion of dry sobs shook Sancia.

Maria sat down weakly in the high-backed chair, the other clinging to her.

“You have always been my friend,” came muffled from Sancia. “I—have no one else.” Sobs again choked her; she shuddered throughout her whole body with the force of them. Maria gazed at the pale golden head and heaving shoulders, and her noble face grew pale with pity.

“Will you not tell it me?” she whispered.

Sancia sobbed out frantic incoherent words, clasping Maria’s arms tightly in a kind of desperate weakness.

At last with an effort she lifted her head. “He said I had the loveliest face in Italy!” she whispered. “He said—it was I—and only I——”

“Who?” cried Maria, bewildered.

“He has broken my heart,” gasped Sancia, unheeding. “He swore false to me—he kissed the Queen.”

“His name!” said Maria imperiously. “Who is it you speak of?”

But the tide of Sancia’s agony had burst beyond control.

“I love him,” she sobbed, “I adore him——”

Maria cried out sternly:

“You shall answer me—who is it?”

“Ludovic of Hungary!”

The Princess rose and tried to cast her off. “This to my face!” she said proudly, and struggled to unlock the clinging hands, “to my face that ye love the King!”

“All know he is naught to you,” answered Sancia wildly. “Nothing to you—hardly have ye spoken together—but to me——”

“Come ye with these confidences to his betrothed?” demanded Maria. She drew away sharply and Sancia, loosened from her hold, fell across the chair.

“I have no other friend,” she said in a stifled voice. “But if it please ye, cast me off—I will go——”

The Princess stood still and speechless, her blue eyes dark with pity and passion, her hand clenched against the wooden ribbing of the wall behind her.

Sancia half raised herself. Through the flush of her hot tears her loveliness showed dazzling from her bright unbound hair to her white interlocked fingers.

“Ye are like a statue of the Virgin,” she said hoarsely. “But I—who am not holy—can ye blame me that I love him?”

Maria struggled for words, something of a bitter smile touched her mouth; she turned her face away and was silent.

To her the moment was beyond speech, as her feelings were beyond Sancia’s understanding. The soft, wailing voice continued: “Have pity on me—I would I was dead! Have pity on me!”

Maria looked at her with a bright disdain; suddenly found her voice and used it, steadily. “I do not blame you in this matter, Sancia,” she said. “But tell me of it from the first—and what you said—of the—Queen.”

Sancia, crouching at her feet, with her head against the chair, whispered her story in the pauses of her heavy sobs. A pitiful story as she told it in her grief, yet holding still some of the glory of a first and passionate love, and full of the innocence of a childlike soul.

She told how she had given her dreaming heart to Ludovic at first sight of him, how he had read her adoration in her eyes and found each day some intoxicating snatched moment to woo her in, how he had spoken splendid wild things of what his first love would do for her, and how she had believed it, trusting in him until to-day—to-day, when she had seen the Queen in his arms and heard her words:

“You and I as lovers!”

Maria listened to the broken recital with a still face. Another smirch on her one-time idol, another proof of the unworthiness of her hero. Her thoughts flashed to Andreas lying in his tomb in San Gonnaro, and her lips tightened.

“This man is not worth your tears!” she cried, stooping over Sancia. “He has come to use Naples for his pleasure, making a mock of his vengeance and a jest of his brother’s death—because we all lie in his hand he plays with us as things below thought!”

“And the Queen?” gasped Sancia. “The Queen? He kissed the Queen—and she is—Andreas was her husband—” The girl’s fine nostrils distended, her lips whitened with fury. She rose stiffly from her knees.

“You know and I know,” she whispered intensely, “that it was his brother’s murderess he caressed!”

“Stop!” commanded Maria. She flung her hand up over her face, and even Sancia’s wrath was awed by her voice, her still figure.

“You have the proofs of it,” said Sancia in a weak tone. “Do you mean to be always silent?”

Maria uncovered her eyes.

“You speak of what touches madness,” she answered under her breath. “Listen to me—” she came a step forward and the girl cowered against the bedpost. “We know nothing—either of us—I have said so before—do you hear me?—do you understand me?”

“I know what I know,” breathed Sancia, clenching her hands. “I know the white devil has enchanted him—I know where you found the fragment of her gown—I know why she rises at night to look from the window with her fingers at her throat——”

She paused, panting, and Maria laid a cold hand on her shoulder.

“Of none of these things will you speak to Ludovic of Hungary,” she said steadily.

Sancia writhed beneath an authority she was not strong enough to outface.

“Why?” she cried. “I want him to loathe the Queen as I loathe her—to kill her as I would kill her if I could—why do you shield her—I came to you for those things you have that damn her—will you not give them to me? Will you not show them to the King? Why do you stand so silent?”

“Because these things are in God’s hands,” said Maria in a low voice. “And I cannot do what you ask.”

Sancia, baffled, mastered, broke into impotent sobbing, calling down judgment on the Queen between her gasping breaths.

Neither had noticed that the room had grown nearly dark. Maria, moving, saw that the window was a mere patch of dull light, and that the sun had long set.

With unfeeling fingers she lit the little lamp beside her bed and the tall candle on the table.

The small flame touched with gold her own incense-scented hair, and cast a wavering shadow round Sancia’s disordered loveliness and palely gleaming locks.

“God help thee,” said Maria compassionately. “For there is no aid save in heaven——”

Sancia broke out:

“I will speak—I will speak,” and struck her hand on the bedpost. “For I love him.”

A faint color came into the Princess’s face. “Ye do not think of me,” she said quietly. “Of how I have stood aside—how I have nursed my heart in secret—ye do not think that I have had my hopes and dreams—perhaps—and you forget that I am the King’s promised wife.”

“But I,” cried Sancia with the selfishness of passion, “I love him——”

“Then ye are more fortunate than I,” flashed Maria, “for I cannot love him—nor any man—ye can cherish thoughts of him in a convent, but I must feed an empty life with dreams.”

Sancia sobbed on.

“Aye,” continued Maria, walking slowly up and down, with her head held disdainfully, “do what you can with your love while you have it—think of it, weep over it. Ye are happier than those who cannot stoop to it—but I—for me, there is another way.”

She paused beside Sancia. The lamp and candle threw cross shadows over them.

“Get back to Padua,” she said.

“I cannot leave him,” murmured Sancia. “Madonna, I cannot!”

“You must,” said Maria, “or you will speak—and shall what I have concealed in deep bitterness and prayer be revealed through your jealousy? I say you shall leave Naples!”

“O Jesu!” moaned Sancia.

“Nay,” continued Maria in a softer tone. “It is the wiser thing for your soul’s sake—and what is there for ye here but misery? Certainly I will not marry this man, but he will not wed with you, and if you love him there is but shame for you—therefore go home to Padua.”

Sancia was silent a great while, and Maria put her arms about her and kissed her quietly. At which Sancia said in a faint voice:

“I will go home.”

“God be praised,” answered Maria trembling.

“And I will be silent.”

Maria kissed her again.

“Now let me rest upon your bed awhile,” pleaded Sancia. “For I am heartbroken unto death, and this place is very peaceful.”

The Princess looked at her in a manner between shame and scorn.

“That ye should break your heart for him!”

The tearful eyes flashed with pride. “There is no knight more splendid in the circle of the world—and I would give my heart again, nay, my soul, that he might smile on me!” She turned away, sank face downward on the pillows, and lay very still, save for the long shudders of exhausted passion that shook her huddled figure.

Maria watched her for a little, then moved across the room and leaned against the window, her head bowed, her hands slack.

Her strongest feeling was one of utter disdain for Sancia, herself—for Ludovic of Hungary. She remembered the night of the masquerade when she had prayed with such fervency for this man’s coming; she remembered the golden pictures her fancy had drawn of him, a hero saint, a stern avenger, a just man, a wise king, a true knight, one greatly different to those who intrigued in the court of Naples.

And now had he not proved himself such an one as any of them. Careless of his brother, he had stooped to dally with the Queen; careless of his honor, he idled the days in too fair Naples; careless of his betrothed, he deigned to turn to Sancia’s adoring loveliness. Bitterly she asked herself—are these the actions my knight would grace his mission with? Bitterly she answered herself—no.

And she felt as if the shame he was unconscious of rested upon her soul. The memory of the dead Andreas in the syringa bushes was as an accusation; the thought of him in Santa Chiara as the thought of a sin.

To her the seal of damnation was very surely upon Giovanna that moment when her lips touched those of her murdered husband’s brother, and the terrible shadow of it was over her own soul. The awful thing that had driven the Queen to madness was unsettling her sister’s clear reason. She tortured herself thinking that to be passive was a sin, thinking that to speak was a sin. She felt herself gripped by a doom that was steadily nearing—nearing burning Naples, nearing the wicked palace, where Giovanna smiled in her sin, where Ludovic caressed her and Sancia wept for love of him—nearing all these tangled nightmare miseries to blot them out forever under the blackness of utter annihilation.

With a fierce effort she controlled her wild thoughts and crept slowly to the bed to look at Sancia.

The Paduan girl was seemingly asleep. Her flushed wet face showed with the freshness of a rose between the twisted yellow of her locks. Where her dress had slipped, her bosom shone white and soft, and heaved now and then with light sobs.

“Would I could find rest as easily,” whispered Maria d’Anjou. She gazed at the childish beauty before her with compassion and no touch of envy, though she did not forget that the splendid Ludovic, for whose coming she had waited so anxiously, had turned from her to this—the Queen’s waiting woman.

Presently a soft knock on the door disturbed her. It was her page, who attended in the antechamber, with a message that the company awaited her in the dining hall. Maria put out the candle and trimmed the lamp, drew the bed curtain so as to shade Sancia’s sleeping face, and left the chamber.

In the outer room sat her tire maid, under a bronze statue of Santa Chiara. She worked at endless lengths of embroidery, and the page was at her feet, holding skeins of somber-colored silk.

“Sancia di Renato sleeps on my bed,” said Maria. “I think she will not wake until my return—ye will not rouse her.”

She sat at the supper table that night as she always sat there—silent, holding herself aloof, so quiet amid the talk and laughter that few looked her way, yet herself acutely observant, with sad eyes of judgment. This evening the whole scene flared before her in colors so sharp and with a meaning so ghastly that more than once she lowered her lids to escape it; still, like a great bedizened picture, it rose, even before her closed eyes: Ludovic of Hungary, flamboyant in black and golden tissues; Giovanna beside him, robed in yellow with her red hair gleaming against a background of cushions of noir and murrey; the dark faces of the Hungarians, the smiling faces of the Italians, beautiful forms of women, sitting carelessly round the board between the upright figures of the men; the shape and glitter of gilt vessels and the sparkle of rich glass; Luigi of Taranto, with the eyes of a reckless man, lounging forward on the table, the emerald studs in his collar shining over his scarlet dress and his face flushed and heavy; Carlo di Durazzo, fallen into the glooms, frowning at the white hounds who fawned beside him; and all lit by the soft yet gleaming light of wax candles that showed like vivid stars in a bright haze.

Opening her eyes resolutely and gazing down the table at the King’s dark face, Maria d’Anjou came to a resolution.

All the long dread and horror had culminated to-day in Sancia’s tale. She would fly from the impending doom, leave the sinners to their sin. In a convent she would pray for the soul of the forgotten Andreas.

First she would speak, for once, to Ludovic of Hungary, and release him from the formal bonds he deemed so light.

When they rose from the table, she waited by her place for the King to pass.

The Queen went by, but never looked at Maria. Ludovic, seeing her waiting, glanced at her expectantly.

“My noble cousin,” she said in a low voice.

He stopped instantly and surveyed her, unsmiling, though he was not ill-pleased that her stately coldness had been brought at last to notice him.

“I do desire,” continued Maria very softly, “to have speech with you on matters of import—to me, at least,” she added proudly.

Ludovic bent his head in a slightly mocking manner. He never took a woman seriously enough to be ever impressed by her gravity, and he thought of this cold bride of his as a heartless creature of caprice.

Maria saw his estimate of her in his arrogant eyes, and the pride of her own regal blood fired her beauty.

“Well,” she said in a louder voice. “Have I that privilege to speak to you?”

The King was looking at her very obvious loveliness. When, as now, she was flushed with animation, she owned a color and a sparkle that made the Queen hard by comparison and Sancia faded.

“My time is yours,” he answered in a stately fashion, but with smiling eyes. “Put me at your commands.”

“If you will be here in the morning when none are abroad, I will come to you.”

He lifted his brows.

“Mass! Is it so weighty—and so secretive?”

“Neither,” she replied quickly. “Yet I pray you come.”

He laughed a little.

“ ’Tis not a difficult request, God wot.” Maria’s blue eyes lifted to his steadily.

“I shall be here—and now, fair liege, the Queen waits for you.”

She turned from him with so considered and quiet a dismissal that his magnificence was moved to a half-angry, half-amused interest.

Resisting the desire to follow her, he turned to Giovanna, watching with fearful eyes, standing in the doorway, waiting him.

“What did she say?” she asked, as he came up to her, for she was afraid of her sister, although she had so completely won the King from her.

“Naught of any matter,” smiled Ludovic. “Naught that can trouble you or I——”

And he touched her hand delicately, where it hung against her robe, as if he would recall that afternoon to her mind.

But she gave him a sick glance and a forced smile for his answer.

Maria went back to her chamber. The page had gone, the maid was half asleep over the endless sewing that crept in its shining colors about her knees.

“Has Sancia gone?” asked the Princess.

“Some moments since, Madonna.”

Maria turned into the bedchamber and locked the door.

To-night, that was to be the last night of it all, she would destroy those pitiful relics of the murdered King, and with them all temptation and all hope or expectation of worldly help or pleasure.

Ludovic of Hungary had failed her. From first to last the Queen had triumphed. It was not for her, but for God’s avenging angels to seek their judgment and their punishment.

She lit a couple of candles and turned up the lamp.

The sight of the tumbled coverlet recalled Sancia’s bitter distress. Maria thought sadly of taking her with her into the convent of Santa Chiara; then of the King and Sancia’s hot words, “the most splendid knight in the circle of the world.” Perhaps he was. She held her breath to think of him. What if he had spurned Giovanna, avenged his brother—and, her lover and lord, taken her back to Hungary?

For a moment’s space she flushed and stood still, thinking of him, then—“Giovanna’s lover,” she said to herself. “And Sancia’s flatterer!”

She went swiftly to her coffer. The lions and cherubs of the molding were picked out in the yellow light as she raised the lid. The breeze from the bay blowing through the open window stirred the tapestry on the wall and her red dress.

With a prayer on her lips, she prepared to burn into ashes and oblivion these things, the destruction of which she had dallied with so long, drawing the candle closer with cold fingers.

Then shock relaxed the quiet of her nervous tension. She cried out in a strange voice and flared the candle full into the open coffer. It was bare. The little casket had gone. She had left the chest unlocked, never thinking—and some one——

Then she remembered and knew.

“Sancia,” she whispered, “Sancia will show them to the King.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. THE TRUTH

Ludovic of Hungary stood silent and thoughtful. The early morning sun made a great brightness in the chamber. The King had a parchment in his hand; on the floor beside him knelt a young boy who was engaged in lacing up his high leathern boots. For the rest the room was empty.

The parchment in Ludovic’s hand was a letter from Hungary. It had recalled sharply that he was in danger of forgetting his own kingdom, and the epistle his mother had sent recalled Andreas and the object of his coming.

The instincts of the King and the warrior responded to the questions that lurked in these letters from home. Carelessness now and both kingdoms might slip. Naples was not his in name. To please Giovanna he had foreborne, leaving her at least the semblance of her authority. She had interested him, fascinated him. He had set himself to the task of winning her coldness as his pride had set his strength many difficult tasks, and to this end he had done much for her, yet he did not intend that Giovanna or any other woman should stand between him and his ambitions.

He had stayed long enough in Naples, unless he remained as King, and the King of Naples must be Giovanna’s husband—or her enemy.

Ludovic frowned. The Queen was extraordinary, a witch of a woman. From the first she had won him by her subtle flatteries and her unusual regal bearing, her strange face and quiet ways… he did not know if he cared for her, but he knew that he would not dare Christendom to marry her, and there was Maria.

Maria was finely dowered and the next of kin. To marry her was to come one step nearer the throne. His brother had given his life for—yet if the Queen took another husband——

He folded his letter up slowly and his frown darkened. What was to prevent him seizing Naples, now it lay under his hand?

Nothing but Giovanna and what he might have said to her—lover-like promises to vanquish her.

But that had lasted long enough. The other day had seen the end of it in the shattered temple. Thinking of her and her strangeness, he grew impatient. He was tired of her. He would leave her kingdom, marry Maria and return to Hungary.

Then he scorned himself fiercely. Should he lose the chance of a crown, and a crown rightfully his, because of a woman?

His eyes sparkled at the thought of conquest. He chafed at his late gorgeous inactivity. His mind, roused by these letters and their spurs at his idleness, was busy with plans of policy and war, the mustering his armies, the conciliating of the Italians, when he remembered Maria’s request the night before.

He had risen early on purpose, but the reading of his letters had put her from his thoughts. The Hungarian galley that had brought them lay at anchor among the shipping in the bay. As the King turned from the room he looked back at it and thought of his mother.

Her letter was not gentle. She spoke of Andreas, her youngest and her best beloved. The victims of San Eligio and the bloody death of the Conte Raymond had not appeased her wrath. She refused scornfully to believe in the innocence of the Queen. She urged her son to carry fire and sword through Naples, and hang Giovanna as Andreas was hanged, over the balcony of Aversa.

Ludovic descended the dark stairs slowly.

“That is Konrad of Gottif’s talk,” he told himself, “yet did she convince me too easily?”

Frowning and with a heavy step he entered the dining hall.

The gay morning sun fell over the disarray of last night—faded flowers, burned-out candles. On the Queen’s dais two white dogs slept. Standing by the long, open window was Maria. Ludovic remarked that she wore the same red dress as yesterday, and that her eyes were heavy underneath, but he did not guess that she had spent the night in a swound of prayer on the cold steps of her chapel altar.

He came over to her quickly.

“I am late,” he said. “Forgive it—letters came from Hungary last night—I received them but now——”

She did not hear what he said. Eagerly she searched his face, set and serious beyond its wont, for some hint of whether he knew or not.

Full of this one thought, she spoke:

“Have you seen Sancia di Renato this morning?” Her voice was thin and weak from fatigue.

He flushed quickly.

“No,” he answered gravely.

She shook with relief. There was still time for her to find Sancia and get the casket from her. She was silent with thankfulness.

Ludovic spoke again, a little haughtily:

“Why do you use Sancia di Renato’s name to me, Madonna? Was it to speak of her you wished to see me?”

“No.” She sat down in a chair by the window and raised her tired eyes.

The King leaned against the long table and pushed the thick hair off his forehead impatiently. She was over-grave, over-passionless for his taste. In the morning light her beauty had lost its sparkle and looked heavy and dragged. Her anger of last night had pleased him better.

He was obviously waiting for her to speak. She gathered her strength.

“Out of the confusion of many resolves,” she said, “I have come to this decision—I do desire to acquaint you with it——”

The weight in her voice, the earnestness in her face startled him. “What is your meaning?” he asked quickly.

“That I shall join the sisterhood of Santa Chiara,” answered Maria. “To-day.”

He colored in sheer surprised anger.

“Is it to slight me that ye breathe this folly?” he demanded. “Are ye not contracted to me?”

“It has been of little matter to you,” she replied gently. “I know that this action of mine that gives me peace will give you no pain. You do not know me. You cannot regret a stranger.”

He laughed shortly.

“I will not lose my wife.”

Maria rose. “You lose nothing. Never would I be your wife.”

Ludovic did not think lightly of himself, nor of what he had to offer. That any woman should use these words to him was as astonishing as if one of his soldiers should refuse to obey. He drew himself up from his easy posture against the table.