and attached himself closely to Charles, paying him much the same sort of respect and deference that he himself had affected for Andre, when the thought was first in his mind of causing his ruin.  But the Duke of Durazzo was by no means deceived as to the devoted friendship shown towards him by the heir of the house of Tarentum, and pretending to be deeply touched by the unexpected change of feeling, he all the time kept a strict guard on Robert’s actions.

An event outside all human foresight occurred to upset the calculations of the two cousins.  One day while they were out together on horseback, as they often were since their pretended reconciliation, Louis of Tarentum, Robert’s youngest brother, who had always felt for Joan a chivalrous, innocent love,—­a love which a young man of twenty is apt to lock up in his heart as a secret treasure,—­Louis, we say, who had held aloof from the infamous family conspiracy and had not soiled his hands with Andre’s blood, drawn on by an irrepressible passion, all at once appeared at the gates of Castel Nuovo; and while his brother was wasting precious hours in asking for a promise of marriage, had the bridge raised and gave the soldiers strict orders to admit no one.  Then, never troubling himself about Charles’s anger or Robert’s jealousy, he hurried to the queen’s room, and there, says Domenico Gravina, without any preamble, the union was consummated.

On returning from his ride, Robert, astonished that the bridge was not at once lowered for him, at first loudly called upon the soldiers on guard at the fortress, threatening severe punishment for their unpardonable negligence; but as the gates did not open and the soldiers made no sign of fear or regret, he fell into a violent fit of rage, and swore he would hang the wretches like dogs for hindering his return home.  But the Empress of Constantinople, terrified at the bloody quarrel beginning between the two brothers, went alone and on foot to her son, and making use of her maternal authority to beg him to master his feelings, there in the presence of the crowd that had come up hastily to witness the strange scene, she related in a low voice all that had passed in his absence.

A roar as of a wounded tiger escaped from Robert’s breast:  all but blind with rage, he nearly trampled his mother under the feet of his horse, which seemed to feel his master’s anger, and plunging violently, breathed blood from his nostrils.  When the prince had poured every possible execration on his brother’s head, he turned and galloped away from the accursed castle, flying to the Duke of Durazzo, whom he had only just left, to tell him of this outrage and stir him to revenge.  Charles was talking carelessly with his young wife, who was but little used to such tranquil conversation and expansiveness, when the Prince of Tarentum, exhausted, out of breath, bathed in perspiration, came up with his incredible tale.  Charles made him say it twice over, so impossible did Louis’s