Charles of Durazzo sat opposite the king, at a separate table among his brothers.  Little by little his look grew fixed, his brow pensive.  He was fancying that Andre might have supped in this very hall on the eve of his tragic end, and he thought how all concerned in that death had either died in torment or were now languishing in prison; the queen, an exile and a fugitive, was begging pity from strangers:  he alone was free.  The thought made him tremble; but admiring his own cleverness in pursuing his infernal schemes, and putting away his sad looks, he smiled again with an expression of indefinable pride.  The madman at this moment was scoffing at the justice of God.  But Lello of Aquila, who was waiting at the table, bent down, whispering gloomily—­

“Unhappy duke, why did you refuse to believe me?  Fly, while there is yet time.”

Charles, angered by the man’s obstinacy, threatened that if he were such a fool as to say any more, he would repeat every word aloud.

“I have done my duty,” murmured Lello, bowing his head; “now it must happen as God wills.”

As he left off speaking, the king rose, and as the duke went up to take his leave, his face suddenly changed, and he cried in an awful voice—­

“Traitor!  At length you are in my hands, and you shall die as you deserve; but before you are handed over to the executioner, confess with your own lips your deeds of treachery towards our royal majesty:  so shall we need no other witness to condemn you to a punishment proportioned to your crimes.  Between our two selves, Duke of Durazzo, tell me first why, by your infamous manoeuvring, you aided your uncle, the Cardinal of Perigord, to hinder the coronation of my brother, and so led him on, since he had no royal prerogative of his own, to his miserable end?  Oh, make no attempt to deny it.  Here is the letter sealed with your seal; in secret you wrote it, but it accuses you in public.  Then why, after bringing us hither to avenge our brother’s death, of which you beyond all doubt were the cause,—­why did you suddenly turn to the queen’s party and march against our town of Aquila, daring to raise an army against our faithful subjects?  You hoped, traitor, to make use of us as a footstool to mount the throne withal, as soon as you were free from every other rival.  Then you would but have awaited our departure to kill the viceroy we should have left in our place, and so seize the kingdom.  But this time your foresight has been at fault.  There is yet another crime worse than all the rest, a crime of high treason, which I shall remorselessly punish.  You carried off the bride that our ancestor King Robert designed for me, as you knew, by his will.  Answer, wretch what excuse can you make for the rape of the Princess Marie?”

Anger had so changed Louis’s voice that the last words sounded like the roar of a wild beast:  his eyes glittered with a feverish light, his lips were pale and trembling.  Charles and his brothers fell upon their knees, frozen by mortal terror, and the unhappy duke twice tried to speak, but his teeth were chattering so violently that he could not articulate a single word.  At last, casting his eyes about him and seeing his poor brothers, innocent and ruined by his fault, he regained some sort of courage, and said—­