; I am going: but at least
remember that I offered you my hand and you refused it. Remember what I
say at this solemn moment: to-day I am the guilty man; some day perhaps I
may be the judge."

He went away slowly, twice turning his head, repeating in the language of
signs his menacing prophecy. Joan hid her face in her hands, and for a
long time remained plunged in dismal reflections; then anger got the
better of all her other feelings, and she summoned Dona Cancha, bidding
her not to allow anybody to enter, on any pretext whatsoever.

This prohibition was not for the Count of Artois, for the reader will
remember that he was in the adjoining room.

CHAPTER III

Night fell, and from the Molo to the Mergellina, from the Capuano Castle
to the hill of St. Elmo, deep silence had succeeded the myriad sounds
that go up from the noisiest city in the world. Charles of Durazzo,
quickly walking away from the square of the Correggi, first casting one
last look of vengeance at the Castel Nuovo, plunged into the labyrinth of
dark streets that twist and turn, cross and recross one another, in this
ancient city, and after a quarter of an hour's walking, that was first
slow, then very rapid, arrived at his ducal palace near the church of San
Giovanni al Mare. He gave certain instructions in a harsh, peremptory
tone to a page who took his sword and cloak. Then Charles shut himself
into his room, without going up to see his poor mother, who was weeping,
sad and solitary over her son's ingratitude, and like every other mother
taking her revenge by praying God to bless him.

The Duke of Durazzo walked up and down his room several times like a lion
in a cage, counting the minutes in a fever of impatience, and was on the
point of summoning a servant and renewing his commands, when two dull
raps on the door informed him that the person he was waiting for had
arrived. He opened at once, and a man of about fifty, dressed in black
from head to foot, entered, humbly bowing, and carefully shut the door
behind him. Charles threw himself into an easy-chair, and gazing fixedly
at the man who stood before him, his eyes on the ground and his arms
crossed upon his breast in an attitude of the deepest respect and blind
obedience, he said slowly, as though weighing each word--

"Master Nicholas of Melazzo, have you any remembrance left of the
services I once rendered you?"

The man to whom these words were addressed trembled in every lim