, I thought I saw his horse, but I could not
see a rider--and I thought, I thought--perhaps because it _was_
dark--and I ran down the front of the palace to get nearer when they
crossed the bridge. Ah, but the tramp was dreadful! And--and--it was his
horse, and a squire leading him--and--behind them--oh Guido!--_Then I
knew_."

"We will be knights, Tristan mio," Guido whispered, wiping away his
comrade's tears while his own were falling; and then, straining each
other convulsively, they broke down in sobs together.

* * * * *

Dama Ecciva stole up the steps from the terrace, and catching Eloisa's
hand, dragged her forcibly away.

"Come quickly," she whispered, with chattering teeth, "_Santa Maria
Vergine!_ I am so frightened. Oh, the poor, poor Queen! That was why she
hath been so strange--she hath truly seen the vision. Poverina, it
breaks one's heart! And he but a week away! So gay and debonair, and
beautiful as a god!"

There was no mistaking her wild eyes.

"Tell me!" Eloisa gasped.

"I was there in the pergola, and I saw them come--the _frati_ from the
Troodos in the midst of the troop of horse--with--with IT.--Oh
Eloisa, _it was true!_--They are telling her now."

* * * * *

There was a stir in the great audience-chamber back of the loggia where
Caterina sat--a sound of hesitant feet, as of many who came unwillingly,
unutterably weary from the dull weight of evil tidings.

The muffled footsteps roused her from her revery and she turned her head
and saw them coming. Her heart stood still for fear.

Messer Andrea came before the others, falteringly--as if youth had died
out of him: he was pale and strange and no words fell from his blanched
lips during that long instant while he crossed the interminable stretch
between them, and Caterina waited, with all her tortured soul crying out
for Janus.

Then the King's favorite, with the cruel story written in his anguished
eyes, turned them full upon hers for one moment, that she might
_know_--then bowed his head upon his breast and opened his arms, as if
he fain would shelter her--

"Caterina----" he said--"Child----"

XII

In the first dazed days that followed, between the necessary adjustment
of matters of state, and the many ceremonies incident upon the King's
sudden death, there was scant time to discuss the rapid happenings; even
in the court-circle they scarcely knew what was pass