eakness and treat your queen shamefully. In the last few days I have
wept and suffered continually, overcome by a terrible grief; I have no
strength to turn to business now. Leave me, I beg: I feel my strength
gives way."

"What, my daughter," cried the Catanese hypocritically, "are you feeling
unwell? Come and lie down at once." And hurrying to the bed, she took
hold of the curtain that concealed the Count of Artois.

The queen uttered a piercing cry, and threw herself before Philippa with
the fury of a lioness. "Stop!" she cried in a choking voice; "take the
privilege you ask, and now, if you value your own life, leave me."

The Catanese and her son departed instantly, not even waiting to reply,
for they had got all they wanted; while Joan, trembling, ran desperately
up to Bertrand, who had angrily drawn his dagger, and would have fallen
upon the two favourites to take vengeance for the insults they had
offered to the queen; but he was very soon disarmed by the lovely shining
eyes raised to him in supplication, the two arms cast about him, and the
tears shed by Joan: he fell at her feet and kissed them rapturously, with
no thought of seeking excuse for his presence, with no word of love, for
it was as if they had loved always: he lavished the tenderest caresses on
her, dried her tears, and pressed his trembling lips upon her lovely
head. Joan began to forget her anger, her vows, and her repentance:
soothed by the music of her lover's speech, she returned uncomprehending
monosyllables: her heart beat till it felt like breaking, and once more
she was falling beneath love's resistless spell, when a new interruption
occurred, shaking her roughly out of her ecstasy; but this time the young
count was able to pass quietly and calmly into a room adjoining, and Joan
prepared to receive her importunate visitor with severe and frigid
dignity.

The individual who arrived at so inopportune a moment was little
calculated to smooth Joan's ruffled brow, being Charles, the eldest son
of the Durazzo family. After he had introduced his fair cousin to the
people as their only legitimate sovereign, he had sought on various
occasions to obtain an interview with her, which in all probability would
be decisive. Charles was one of those men who to gain their end recoil
at nothing; devoured by raging ambition and accustomed from his earliest
years to conceal his most ardent desires beneath a mask of careless
indifference, he marched