CHAPTER XXII.

When Wolf went back to Erasmus the latter assured his friend that he had
met no maiden in Ratisbon who, to rare gifts, united the dignity which
he had hitherto admired only in the ladies whom he had met at the court
of the Elector of Saxony. His sparkling eyes flashed more brightly as
he spoke, and, like a blushing girl, he confessed to his friend that
Jungfrau Blomberg's promise to sing one of his own compositions to him
made him a happy man.

Barbara's conduct had made the repressed fire of love blaze up anew in
Wolf.

Now, for the first time, the woman he loved fully and entirely fulfilled
the ideal which he had formed of the "queen" of his heart.

Was it the sad separation from him, the taking leave of her father, or
her new love, which was bestowed on a man whom he also esteemed, that
impressed upon her nature the stamp of a nobility which beseemed her as
well as it suited her aristocratic beauty?

Never had it appeared to him so utterly impossible that he could yield
her to another without resistance. Perhaps the man chosen by such a
jewel was more worthy than he, but no one's love could surpass his in
strength and fervour. She had tested it, and he need no longer call
himself an insignificant suitor; for, if he gained possession of the
living which Don Luis had ready for him, if he obtained a high position
in Valladolid--But his friend gave him no time to pursue such thoughts
further, for, while Barbara shortly after midnight stole down the
stairs like a criminal, and Quijada conducted her to her imperial lover,
Erasmus began to press him with demands which he was obliged to reject.

The Wittenberg master of arts, ever since his first meeting with his
friend, had been on the point of asking the question how he, who had
obtained in the school of poets an insight into the pure word of God,
could prevail upon himself to continue to wear the chains of Rome and
remain a Catholic.

Wolf had expected this query, and, while he filled his companion's
goblet with the good Wurzburg wine which Ursula provided, he begged him
not to bring religion into their conversation.

The young Wittenberg theologian, however, had come for the express
purpose of discussing it with his friend.

Religion, he asserted in the fervid manner characteristic of him, was in
these times the axis around which turned the inner life of the world
and every individual. He himself had resolved to live for the object
for whose sak