my sins, and assured me of God's forgiveness, yet
cannot keep from me those dread apparitions which in this terrible hour
arise before me. Twice have you seen me battling with a superhuman
horror. My brow has been bathed in sweat, my limbs rigid, my cries have
been stifled by a hand of iron. Has God permitted the Evil Spirit to
tempt me? Is this remorse in phantom shape? These two conflicts I have
suffered have so subdued my strength that I can never endure a third.
Listen then, my Sandra, for I have instructions to give you on which
perhaps the safety of my soul depends."

"My lord and my master," said the queen in the most gentle accents of
submission, "I am ready to listen to your orders; and should it be that
God, in the hidden designs of His providence, has willed to call you to
His glory while we are plunged in grief, your last wishes shall be
fulfilled here on earth most scrupulously and exactly. But," she added,
with all the solicitude of a timid soul, "pray suffer me to sprinkle
drops of holy water and banish the accursed one from this chamber, and
let me offer up some part of that service of prayer that you composed in
honour of your sainted brother to implore God's protection in this hour
when we can ill afford to lose it."

Then opening a richly bound book, she read with fervent devotion certain
verses of the office that Robert had written in a very pure Latin for his
brother Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, which was in use in the Church as
late as the time of the Council of Trent.

Soothed by the charm of the prayers he had himself composed, the king was
near forgetting the object of the interview he had so solemnly and
eagerly demanded and letting himself lapse into a state of vague
melancholy, he murmured in a subdued voice, "Yes, yes, you are right;
pray for me, for you too are a saint, and I am but a poor sinful man."

"Say not so, my lord," interrupted Dona Sancha; "you are the greatest,
wisest, and most just king who has ever sat upon the throne of Naples."

"But the throne is usurped," replied Robert in a voice of gloom; "you
know that the kingdom belonged to my elder brother, Charles Martel; and
since Charles was on the throne of Hungary, which he inherited from his
mother, the kingdom of Naples devolved by right upon his eldest son,
Carobert, and not on me, who am the third in rank of the family. And I
have suffered myself to be crowned in my nephew's stead, though he was
the only lawful-king