a tomb.

"Listen, Dona Sandra. I know that your heart has never clung to earthly
vanities, and that you only wait till God has called me to Himself to
withdraw to the convent of Santa Maria delta Croce, founded by yourself
in the hope that you might there end your days. Far be it from me to
dissuade you from your sacred vocation, when I am myself descending into
the tomb and am conscious of the nothingness of all human greatness.
Only grant me one year of widowhood before you pass on to your bridal
with the Lord, one year in which you will watch over Joan and her
husband, to keep from them all the dangers that threaten. Already the
woman who was the seneschal's wife and her son have too much influence
over our grand-daughter; be specially careful, and amid the many
interests, intrigues, and temptations that will surround the young
queen, distrust particularly the affection of Bertrand d'Artois, the
beauty of Louis of Tarentum; and the ambition of Charles of Durazzo."

The king paused, exhausted by the effort of speaking; then turning on
his wife a supplicating glance and extending his thin wasted hand, he
added in a scarcely audible voice:

"Once again I entreat you, leave not the court before a year has passed.
Do you promise me?"

"I promise, my lord."

"And now," said Robert, whose face at these words took on a new
animation, "call my confessor and the physician and summon the family,
for the hour is at hand, and soon I shall not have the strength to speak
my last words."

A few moments later the priest and the doctor re-entered the room, their
faces bathed, in tears. The king thanked them warmly for their care of
him in his last illness, and begged them help to dress him in the coarse
garb of a Franciscan monk, that God, as he said, seeing him die in
poverty, humility, and penitence, might the more easily grant him
pardon. The confessor and doctor placed upon his naked feet the sandals
worn by mendicant friars, robed him in a Franciscan frock, and tied the
rope about his waist. Stretched thus upon his bed, his brow surmounted
by his scanty locks, with his long white beard, and his hands crossed
upon his breast, the King of Naples looked like one of those aged
anchorites who spend their lives in mortifying the flesh, and whose
souls, absorbed in heavenly contemplation, glide insensibly from out
their last ecstasy into eternal bliss. Some time he lay thus with closed
eyes, putting up a silent prayer to God; th