“I do not disguise from you, Sir Knight,” answered Adrian, “that when my present embassy is over, I trust the alliance between the Tribune and a Colonna will go far towards the benefit of both.”

“I have heard rightly, then,” said Montreal, in a grave and thoughtful tone.  “Rienzi’s power must, indeed, be great.”

“Of that my mission is a proof.  Are you aware, Signor de Montreal, that Louis, King of Hungary—­”

“How! what of him?”

“Has referred the decision of the feud between himself and Joanna of Naples, respecting the death of her royal spouse, his brother, to the fiat of the Tribune?  This is the first time, methinks, since the death of Constantine, that so great a confidence and so high a charge were ever intrusted to a Roman!”

“By all the saints in the calendar,” cried Montreal, crossing himself, “this news is indeed amazing!  The fierce Louis of Hungary waive the right of the sword, and choose other umpire than the field of battle!”

“And this,” continued Adrian, in a significant tone, “this it was which induced me to obey your courteous summons.  I know, brave Montreal, that you hold intercourse with Louis.  Louis has given to the Tribune the best pledge of his amity and alliance; will you do wisely if you—­”

“Wage war with the Hungarian’s ally,” interrupted Montreal.  “This you were about to add; the same thought crossed myself.  My Lord, pardon me—­Italians sometimes invent what they wish.  On the honour of a knight of the Empire, these tidings are the naked truth?”

“By my honour, and on the Cross,” answered Adrian, drawing himself up; “and in proof thereof, I am now bound to Naples to settle with the Queen the preliminaries of the appointed trial.”

“Two crowned heads before the tribunal of a plebeian, and one a defendant against the charge of murther!” muttered Montreal; “the news might well amaze me!”

He remained musing and silent a little while, till looking up, he caught Adeline’s tender gaze fixed upon him with that deep solicitude with which she watched the outward effect of schemes and projects she was too soft to desire to know, and too innocent to share.

“Lady mine,” said the Provencal, fondly, “how sayest thou? must we abandon our mountain castle, and these wild woodland scenes, for the dull walls of a city?  I fear me so.—­The Lady Adeline,” he continued, turning to Adrian, “is of a singular bias; she hates the gay crowds of streets and thoroughfares, and esteems no palace like the solitary outlaw’s hold.  Yet, methinks, she might outshine all the faces of Italy,—­thy mistress, Lord Adrian, of course, excepted.”

“It is an exception which only a lover, and that too a betrothed lover, would dare to make,” replied Adrian, gallantly.

“Nay,” said Adeline, in a voice singularly sweet and clear, “nay, I know well at what price to value my lord’s flattery, and Signor di Castello’s courtesy.  But you are bound, Sir Knight, to a court, that, if fame speak true, boasts in its Queen the very miracle and mould of beauty.”