bition 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; then he bade them light the spacious room as for a
great solemnity, and gave a sign to the two persons who stood, one at the
head, the other at the foot of the bed. The two folding doors opened,
and the whole of the royal family, with the queen at their head and the
chief barons following, took their places in silence around the dying
king to hear his last wishes.

His eyes turned toward Joan, who stood next him on his right hand, with
an indescribable look of tenderness and grief. She was of a beauty so
unusual and so marvellous, that her grandfather was fascinated by the
dazzling sight, and mistook her for an angel that God had sent to console
him on his deathbed. The pure lines of her fine profile, her great black
liquid eyes, her noble brow uncovered, her hair shining like the raven's
wing, her delicate mouth, the whole effect of this beautiful face on the
mind of those who beheld her was that of a deep melancholy and sweetness,
i