she had enjoyed
through his love returned to her mind. It was in his power to bestow the
highest happiness which earth can give; after all, his love outweighed
everything that she must sacrifice for it. To enjoy it, though but for a
brief season, she ought not to refuse to bear the hardest, most terrible
things, and, if what was now her secret became rumoured among the
people, to accept humiliation, shame, and scorn. Let the respectable
women of Ratisbon, in their pride of virtue, maliciously cast stones at
her; they could not look down upon her, for, as the object of the most
illustrious sovereign's love, she was raised far above them.

Meanwhile, with a feeling of defiant self-confidence, she was again
braiding her hair. But the mental firmness which she had regained did
not last; more than once her hand faltered while the comb was dividing
the wealth of her golden tresses. How ardently Charles had praised their
luxuriant beauty!-and to-day he was to rejoice in it again. But why had
not even one poor word from his own hand accompanied the summons?

Why had his messenger been only a valet? Why had he wounded her so
deeply the night before?

Why did leaden weights seem to hang upon her soul when she attempted to
soar upward?

Oh, what a state of things!

Who had given the regent, to whom nothing attracted her, the right to
dispose of her as though she were a chattel or her captive?

Had she, with her heart and her honour, also resigned her freedom to her
lover?

If she had only possessed one, one single person to whom she could utter
her thoughts!

Then her glance fell upon the knapsack, and she remembered Wolf. He was
to set out on his journey early the next morning; her lover expected her
after vespers; so perhaps she would not be permitted to see him again,
for she scarcely dared to hope that, after the rebuff which he had
experienced, he would seek her again. Yet she longed once more to clasp
the hand of the man for whom she felt a sister's affection and yet had
so deeply wounded.

Without one kind farewell word from him, the bitterest drop of all would
fall into the wormwood which already mingled in her happiness. It seemed
incomprehensible that he who from childhood had given her his whole
heart would henceforth deny her every friendly feeling. For her own
sake, and also for his, this should not be.

How many had sought her love! But perhaps the time would soon come when,
on account of the one who mu