But her elation passed and a sense of overwhelming disaster possessed her. "The Senate had known it all—the Senate had told her nothing—nothing about Carlotta. Why had they not named her—was it because—because——?"
And then the questionings that had come to her hastily and been lost in the recital of the perils and escapes of one so beloved came back with renewed force and would not be quieted, but called out for an answer. When Janus came she would ask him—in her staunch fair soul, she knew that she must ask him, though he might be angry and the bare thought of this made her shrink and quail—it even shadowed a little the pleasure of his longed-for coming—for he had always been so knightly to her. But yet, she could not wait! A great horror came over her of the old Queen, who had been painted as without principle and of wild passions—shrinking from nothing so that she might gain her will, and she was glad in her soul that Elenà was not the mother of her Janus, while she struggled with her Venetian pride and promised herself to be the truer to him for his wrongs. And so the night wore on; and between her longing and her trouble there was no sleep for her while the day delayed.
A vague shape of terror seemed to hover between her and her vision of the future that had been so golden. Where was Carlotta? Might she not come again and strive to win back her crown? Were the nobles many who would uphold her?
Nay; but it was Janus whom the people loved—Janus! who had been crowned their king, with all solemn ceremony in Alexandria, by order of the Suzerain of Cyprus—to oppose him was rebellion! Janus—her beloved—so winsome, so masterful! Then, slowly out of the darkness rose the noble face of Lorenzo the Giustinian, full of quiet and strength—her mother's face, loving, comforting—both asking her best of her; and the Question grew in her soul. "Perhaps Carlotta's right was greater—could it be greater than her husband's?"
X
All day the queen had been restless and depressed, starting at the sound of a footfall only to drop her eyes again in disappointment and relapse into unquiet revery; the weight of empire hung heavily upon her girlish spirit and she was unutterably lonely in the absence of Janus which seemed so unduly prolonged. It was the latest day that he had named for his possible absence, and still no courier had come to announce his return.
The noon had been unusually sultry, the stifling heat of the upper chambers oppressed her and the ceaseless, rasping whir of the cicala smote her with weariness, but she resisted the attempt of her ladies to detain her in the cooler atmosphere of the voto, for in these underground chambers she could have no sight of the great plain beyond the boundaries of the palace-gardens—and she preferred remaining in the halls that overlooked the terraces—turning her eyes often in the direction of the forest.