“I can,” said Joan, and she turned pale.

“One word from you—­and—­”

“Yes?”

“To-morrow you will be free.”

“A murder!” cried Joan, recoiling in horror:  “then I was not deceived; it is a murder that you have proposed.”

“It is a necessity,” said the duke calmly:  “today I advise; later on you will give your orders.”

“Enough, wretch!  I cannot tell if you are more cowardly or more rash:  cowardly, because you reveal a criminal plot feeling sure that I shall never denounce you; rash, because in revealing it to me you cannot tell what witnesses are near to hear it all.”

“In any case, madam, since I have put myself in your hands, you must perceive that I cannot leave you till I know if I must look upon myself as your friend or as your enemy.”

“Leave me,” cried Joan, with a disdainful gesture; “you insult your queen.”

“You forget, my dear cousin, that some day I may very likely have a claim to your kingdom.”

“Do not force me to have you turned out of this room,” said Joan, advancing towards the door.

“Now do not get excited, my fair cousin; 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.