What passed between them no man may say with any certainty; all that is absolutely sure is that, when a few minutes had gone by, the scream of a man in intolerable agony of soul rang out through the stone corridor; and the Duchess’s servants, rushing to her room, found her lying dead in the arms of her stricken son, who, himself, was entreating her frantically to come back to him, sobbing as though his heart would break, and imploring the mercy of Heaven for his misjudgment of her. From that hour there was something very dreadful in the look of the Duke of Durazzo, as though he were afraid of his own thoughts, and were for ever struggling to free himself from their compulsion. The only person who understood a little of what was in his mind was doubtless the Empress of Constantinople, and, when she saw that the man was, for the first time in all his life, the prey of a hideous remorse, she became gradually afraid for herself and for her first-born, Robert of Taranto, for whom she was plotting to secure the hand of the Queen. Towards the end of the time agreed upon between Joan and the Empress for the former to make public her betrothal to Robert, who was still living in the Castel Nuovo, and while the whole town was lamenting the mysterious death of the beloved Duchess Agnes of Durazzo, there came to pass a thing which utterly set at naught all the calculations of the Empress and of her eldest son. It so happened that one day Robert of Taranto had gone out riding with Charles of Durazzo, whom the astute mother of Robert had, since the demise of Duchess Agnes, persuaded her son to conciliate by every possible means in his power. Now both Robert and his mother had overlooked, or were in ignorance of, the surpassing love that Louis of Taranto, the youngest of Robert’s two brothers, had for some years borne to Joan; which love Louis had kept in check to the best of his ability while Andrew of Hungary lived. But now that Joan was a widow and the prize of any man bold enough to snatch it from the rest, Louis of Taranto felt no hesitation in doing so when the opportunity offered. Therefore it came about that, on his return to the Castel Nuovo, Robert found himself shut out. Despite his clamour to be admitted, as he termed it, “to his own house,” and his threats to exact bloody retribution from the sentries within for keeping him waiting, he received no attention from anybody until his mother came out to him, trembling and confused, to say that in his absence his brother Louis had effected an entry into the castle, and had compelled Joan to go through a form of marriage with him.