Again, the third day of Louis’s visit to Aversa, the Queen arranged meals and meetings alone with the Prince, whose morals and whose manhood she was striving so consumedly to seduce. The Queen’s eyes had in them not alone the lure of lust, but the flash of passion and the flame of resentment. Louis again excused himself her presence, and, making his way to his tryst with Leonora, heard as he approached the grotto the high-toned voice of Giovanna beating down the frightened protests of his _innamorata_--they were together in the grotto! The Prince revealed himself, only to meet the scornful invectives of the jealous Queen. She demanded to know the nature of Louis’s relations with her serving-maid, and when she had heard the story she turned upon Leonora like a tiger. Louis stepped before the terrified girl, and bade Giovanna abate her fury and not lay hands upon a woman whom he loved. “Leonora has done more than you, madam,” he exclaimed, “to mount me on the throne of Naples, and you shall not cause me to descend therefrom!” The Queen, at last realizing the manner of man with whom she had to deal, was intimidated by his boldness, and presently she left the grotto. Leonora still refused Louis’s proposition, and before the day dawned she had taken her flight from Aversa, and was well on her way to Rome, to claim sanctuary. She wrote a farewell letter to her royal lover, which a faithful dependent of her father safely conveyed to Naples. King Louis offered the old man every possible inducement to reveal the hiding-place of his young mistress, but he never broke the seal of secrecy which Leonora placed upon him, and Louis and Leonora never met again. Louis managed to evade the embraces and the advances of the Queen. He had been espoused to the Princess Margaret of Savoy, and although he used the liberty of a vigorous and a level-headed young manhood under the silver-feathered ægis of Prince Cupid, he was not forgetful of his troth. Having broken the back of the opposition of Alfonso of Aragon, and being confident of the support of Genoa and Milan, he lived in comparative comfort and peace; but he withdrew into Calabria, where he was for a time, at all events, safe from the intrigues of Giovanna. During this interval the young King made repeated visits both to Angers and Chambéry, to greet his devoted mother, revive the sweet memories of his boyhood, and to cultivate the love of his fiancée Margaret, now growing rapidly to womanhood.