and begged him to inform his Majesty, with her dutiful
greeting. His best gift was the precaution which he had taken that she
should live apart from the old monkey.

The valet received this commission, like all the former ones, with a
slight, grave bow.

On the whole, the experienced man was not ill-pleased with her, only
it seemed to him strange that Barbara did not mention the serious
misfortune which had befallen Wolf; yet she knew from his own lips
that he loved the knight, and had learned that the latter's life was in
serious danger.

So he turned the conversation to his young friend, and in an instant
a remarkable change took place in Barbara. Wolf's sorrowful fate and
severe wound had weighed heavily upon her heart, but what the present
brought was so novel and varied that it had crowded the painful event,
near as was the past to which it belonged, into the shadow.

She now desired to know who the murderer was who had attacked him, and
cursed him with impetuous wrath. She thought it base and shameful that
she had been denied access to his couch.

Poor, poor Wolf!

Of all the men on earth, he was the best! Meanwhile tears of genuine
compassion flowed from her eyes and, with passionate vehemence, she
declared that no power in the world should keep her from him. The mere
sound of her voice, she knew, would be a cordial to him.

So Master Adrian had not been mistaken.

It was not only in song that she was capable of deep feeling, and
the love which had seized the Emperor Charles so late, and yet so
powerfully, had not gone far astray.

He could scarcely have bestowed it upon a more beautiful woman. While
pleasure in her new surroundings held sway over her, it was a real
pleasure to see her face. But this creature, so richly gifted by the
grace of God, was not suited for his modest young friend; this had
become especially evident to him when an almost evil expression escaped
her lips while she emptied the vial of her wrath upon Wolf's murderer.

If she deemed herself worthy of his master's love, she would not lack
Adrian's protection, which was the more effective the more persistently
he refrained from asking of the Emperor's favour even the slightest
thing for himself, his wife, or others; that the time would come when
she would need it, he was certain.

No one knew the Emperor so well as he, and he saw before him the cliffs
which threatened to shatter the little ship of this love bond. Already
an impru