"

Panting for breath, Barbara gazed a long time into vacancy. Then,
suddenly drawing herself up proudly, she exclaimed to Lamperi: "I'll
dress my hair myself. Yesterday Herr De la Porta offered me his
travelling carriage. The major-domo must go to him at once and say that
Madame de Blomberg asks the loan of the vehicle. Let the page Diego
order post and courier horses at the same time. The carriage must be
ready in an hour."

"But, Madame," cried the maid, raising her hands in alarm and
admonition, "the Rassinghams are expecting you. The honour! Every one
who is well disposed in the States-General will be there. Who knows what
the party has in store for you? And then the banquet! What may there not
be to hear!"

"No matter," replied Barbara. "The chaplain--I'll speak to him-must send
the refusal. No summons from Heaven could be more powerful than the call
that takes me away. Bestir yourself! There is not an instant to lose."

Frau Lamperi retired with drooping head. But when she had executed her
mistress's orders and returned, Barbara laid her hand upon her shoulder,
whispering: "You can keep silence. I am going to Luxemburg. He who calls
me is one whom you saw enter the world, the hero of Lepanto. He wants
his mother. At last! at last! And I--"

Here tears stifled her voice, and obeying the desire to pour out to
another the overflowing gratitude and love which had taken possession of
her soul, she threw herself upon the gray-haired attendant's breast,
and amid her weeping exclaimed: "I shall see him with these eyes, I can
clasp his hand, I shall hear his voice--that voice--His first cry--A
thousand times, waking and sleeping, I have fancied I heard it again. Do
you remember how they took him from me, Lamperi?

"To think that I survived it! But now--now If that voice lured me to the
deepest abyss and called me away from paradise, I would go!"

The maid's old eyes also overflowed, and when Barbara read her son's
letter aloud, she cried: "Of course there can be no delay, even if,
instead of the Rassinghams, King Philip himself should send for you. And
I--may I go with you? Oh, Madame, you do not know what a sweet little
angel he was from his very birth! We were not allowed to show him to
you. And it was wise, for, had you seen him, it would have broken your
poor mother heart to give him up."

She sobbed aloud as she spoke. Barbara permitted her to accompany her,
though she had intended to take her companion, and