r. I am the queen, and I
must yield myself up for the good of my subjects."

"Will you forbid me, madam," replied Dona Cancha in a kind, affectionate
tone--"will you forbid me to name Bertrand of Artois in your presence,
that unhappy man, with the beauty of an angel and the modesty of a girl?
Now that you are queen and have the life and death of your subjects in
your own keeping, will you feel no kindness towards an unfortunate one
whose only fault is to adore you, who strives with all his mind and
strength to bear a chance look of yours without dying of his joy?"

"I have struggled hard never to look on him," cried the queen, urged by
an impulse she was not strong enough to conquer: then, to efface the
impression that might well have been made on her friend's mind, she added
severely, "I forbid you to pronounce his name before me; and if he should
ever venture to complain, I bid you tell him from me that the first time
I even suspect the cause of his distress he will be banished for ever
from my presence."

"Ah, madam, dismiss me also; for I shall never be strong enough to do so
hard a bidding: the unhappy man who cannot awake in your heart so much as
a feeling of pity may now be struck down by yourself in your wrath, for
here he stands; he has heard your sentence, and come to die at your
feet."

The last words were spoken in a louder voice, so that they might be heard
from outside, and Bertrand of Artois came hurriedly into the room and
fell on his knees before the queen. For a long time past the young
lady-in-waiting had perceived that Robert of Cabane had, through his own
fault, lost the love of Joan; for his tyranny had indeed become more
unendurable to her than her husband's.

Dona Cancha had been quick enough to perceive that the eyes of her young
mistress were wont to rest with a kind of melancholy gentleness on
Bertrand, a young man of handsome appearance but with a sad and dreamy
expression; so when she made up her mind to speak in his interests, she
was persuaded that the queen already loved him. Still, a bright colour
overspread Joan's face, and her anger would have fallen on both culprits
alike, when in the next room a sound of steps was heard, and the voice of
the grand seneschal's widow in conversation with her son fell on the ears
of the three young people like a clap of thunder. Dona Cancha, pale as
death, stood trembling; Bertrand felt that he was lost--all the more
because his presence compromi