ain to read: their looks met like lightning flashes of
hatred and of vengeance. The Catanese, who felt she was detected, lacked
courage to fight this man in the open, and so conceived the hope of
strengthening her tottering empire by the arts of corruption and
debauchery. She instilled by degrees into her pupil's mind the poison of
vice, inflamed her youthful imagination with precocious desires, sowed in
her heart the seeds of an unconquerable aversion for her husband,
surrounded the poor child with abandoned women, and especially attached
to her the beautiful and attractive Dona Cancha, who is branded by
contemporary authors with the name of a courtesan; then summed up all
these lessons in infamy by prostituting Joan to her own son. The poor
girl, polluted by sin before she knew what life was, threw her whole self
into this first passion with all the ardour of youth, and loved Robert of
Cabane so violently, so madly, that the Catanese congratulated herself on
the success of her infamy, believing that she held her prey so fast in
her toils that her victim would never attempt to escape them.

A year passed by before Joan, conquered by her infatuation, conceived the
smallest suspicion of her lover's sincerity. He, more ambitious than
affectionate, found it easy to conceal his coldness under the cloak of a
brotherly intimacy, of blind submission, and of unswerving devotion;
perhaps he would have deceived his mistress for a longer time had not
Bertrand of Artois fallen madly in love with Joan. Suddenly the bandage
fell from the young girl's eyes; comparing the two with the natural
instinct of a woman beloved which never goes astray, she perceived that
Robert of Cabane loved her for his own sake, while Bertrand of Artois
would give his life to make her happy. A light fell upon her past: she
mentally recalled the circumstances that preceded and accompanied her
earliest love; and a shudder went through her at the thought that she had
been sacrificed to a cowardly seducer by the very woman she had loved
most in the world, whom she had called by the name of mother.

Joan drew back into herself, and wept bitterly. Wounded by a single blow
in all her affections, at first her grief absorbed her; then, roused to
sudden anger, she proudly raised her head, for now her love was changed
to scorn. Robert, amazed at her cold and haughty reception of him,
following on so great a love, was stung by jealousy and wounded pride.
He broke