In a ruined villa, shattered by the barbarians and crumbled by time, sat Ysabeau the Empress looking over the sunless Maremma.

A few olive trees were all that shaded the bare expanse of marshy land, where great pools veiled with unhealthy vapours gleamed faintly under the heavy clouds.

Here and there rose the straight roof of a forsaken convent, or the stately pillars of a deserted palace.

There was no human being in sight.

A few birds flew low over the marshes; sometimes one screamed in through the open roof or darted across the gaping broken doorway.

Then Ysabeau would rise from her sombre silence to spurn them from her with fierce words and stones.

The stained marble was grown with reeds and wild flowers; a straggling vine half twisted round two of the slender columns; and there the Empress sat, huddled in her cloak and gazing over the forlorn marshes.

She had dwelt here for three days; at every sunrise a peasant girl, daring the excommunication, had brought her food, then fled with a frightened face.

Ysabeau saw nothing before her save death, but she did not mean to die by the ignoble way of starvation.

She had not heard of the defeat of Balthasar at Tivoli, nor of the election of Theirry to the crown; day and night she thought on her husband, and pondered how she might still possibly serve him.

She did not hope to see him again; it never occurred to her to return to him; when she had fled his camp she had left a confession behind her — no Greek would have heeded it, but these Saxons, still, to her, foreigners, were different.

And Balthasar had loved Melchoir of Brabant.

It was very hot, with a sullen, close heat; the dreary prospect became hateful to her, and she rose and moved to the inner portion of the villa, where the marigold roots thrust up through the inlaid stone floor, and a remaining portion of the roof cast a shade.

Here she seated herself on the capital of a broken column, and a languid weariness subdued her proud spirit; her head sank back against the stained wall, and she slept.

When she woke the whole landscape was glowing with the soft red of sunset.

She stretched herself, shivered, and looked about her.

Then she suddenly drew herself together and listened.

There were faint voices coming from the outer room, and the sound of a man’s tread. Ysabeau held her breath.

But so close a silence followed that she thought she must have been deceived.

For a while she waited, then crept cautiously towards the shattered doorway that led into the other chamber.

She gained it and gazed through.

Sitting where she had just now sat, under the vine-twisted columns, was a huge knight in defaced armour; his back was towards her; by his side his helmet stood, and the great glittering dragon that formed the crest shone in the setting sun.

He was bending over a child that lay asleep on a crimson cloak.

“Balthasar,” said Ysabeau.

He gave a little cry, and looked over his shoulder. “Tell me, my lord,” she asked in a trembling voice, “as you would tell a stranger, if evil fortune brings you here.”

He rose softly, his face flushed.

“I am a ruined man. They have elected another Emperor. Now, I think, it does not matter.” Her eyes travelled in a dazed way to the child.

“Is he sick?”

“Nay, only weary; we have been wandering since Tivoli —”

While he spoke he looked at her, as if the world held nothing else worth gazing on. “I must go,” said Ysabeau.

“Must go?”

“I am cast out — I may not share your misfortunes.” Balthasar laughed.

“I have been searching for you madly, Ysabeau.”

“Searching?”

And now he looked away from her.

“I thought my heart would have burst when I discovered ye had gone to Rome.”

“But you found the writing?” she cried.

“Yea —”

“You know — I slew him?”

“I know you went to give your life for me.”

“I am accursed!

“You have been faithful to me.”

“Oh, Balthasar! — does it make no difference?”

“It cannot,” he said, half sadly. “You are my wife — part of me; I have given you my heart to keep, and nothing can alter it.”

“You do not mock me?” she questioned, shuddering. “It must be that you mock me — I will go away —”

He stepped before her.

“You shall never leave me again, Ysabeau.”

“I had not dared — you have forgiven —”

“I am not your judge —”

“It cannot be that God is so tender!”

“I do not speak for Him,” said Balthasar hoarsely —“but for myself —”

She could not answer.

“Ysabeau,” he cried jealously, “you — could you have lived apart from me?”

“Nay,” she whispered; “I meant to die.”

“That I might be forgiven!”

“What else could I do! Would they had slain me and taken the curse from you!”

He put his arm round her bowed shoulders. “There is no curse while we are together, Ysabeau.”

Her marvellous hair lay across his dinted mail.

“This is sweeter than our marriage day, Balthasar, for now you know the worst of me —” “My wife! — my lady and my wife!”

He set her gently on the broken shaft by the door and kissed her hand.

“Wencelaus sleeps,” she smiled through tears. “I could not have put him to rest more surely —” “He slept not much last night,” said Balthasar, “for the owls and flitter mice — and it was very dark with the moon hidden.”

Her hand still lay in his great palm.

“Tell me of yourself,” she whispered.

And he told her how they had been defeated at Tivoli, how the remnant of his force had forsaken him, and how Theirry of Dendermonde had been elected Emperor by the wishes of the Pope.

Her eyes grew fierce at that.

“I have ruined you,” she said; “made you a beggar.”

“If you knew”— he smiled half shyly —“how little I care, for myself — certes, for you.” “Do not shame me,” she cried.

“Could I have held a throne without you, Ysabeau?”

Her fingers trembled in his.

“Would I had been a better woman, for your sake, Balthasar.”

His swift bright flush dyed his fair face.

“All I grieve for, Ysabeau, is — God.”

“God?” she asked, wondering.

“If He should not forgive?”— his blue eyes were troubled —“and we are cursed and cast out —— what think you?”

She drew closer to him.

“Through me! — you grieve, and this is — through me!”

“Nay, our destiny is one — always. Only, I think — of afterwards — yet, if you are — damned, as the priest says, why, I will be so too —”

“Do not fear, Balthasar; if God will not receive me, the little images at Constantinople will forgive me if I pray to them again as I did when I was a child —”

They fell on silence again, while the red colour of the setting sun deepened and cast a glow over their weary faces and the sleeping figure of Wencelaus; the vine leaves fluttered from the ancient marble and the wild-fowl screamed across the marshes.

“Who is this Pope that he should hate us so?” mused Ysabeau. “And who Theirry of Dendermonde that he should be Emperor of the West?”

“He is to be crowned in the Basilica today,” said Balthasar.

“While we sit here!”

“I do not understand it. Nor do I now, Ysabeau,”— Balthasar looked at her —“greatly care —”

“But you shall care!” she cried. “If I be all to you, I will be that — I must see you again upon the throne; we will to Basil’s Court. That this Theirry of Dendermonde should sleep to-night in the golden palace!”

“We have found each other,” said the Emperor simply.

She raised his hand, kissed it, and no more was said, while the mists gathered and thicke............