completed a year of widowhood, exchanged goods temporary for goods
eternal. Adopting for the love of God a voluntary poverty, and
distributing her goods to the poor, she took upon her the rule of
obedience in this celebrated convent of Santa Croce, the work of her
own hands, in the year 1344, on the gist of January of the twelfth
indiction, where, living a life of holiness under the rule of the
blessed Francis, father of the poor, she ended her days religiously
in the year of our Lord 1345, on the 28th of July of the thirteenth
indiction. On the day following she was buried in this tomb."

The death of Dona Sancha served to hasten on the catastrophe which was
to stain the throne of Naples with blood: one might almost fancy that
God wished to spare this angel of love and resignation the sight of
so terrible a spectacle, that she offered herself as a propitiatory
sacrifice to redeem the crimes of her family.




CHAPTER IV

Eight days after the funeral of the old queen, Bertrand of Artois came
to Joan, distraught, dishevelled, in a state of agitation and confusion
impossible to describe.

Joan went quickly up to her lover, asking him with a look of fear to
explain the cause of his distress.

"I told you, madam," cried the young baron excitedly, "you will end by
ruining us all, as you will never take any advice from me."