s in the best possible manner. A chance word from
the distinguished prelate had sufficed to make it their duty to watch
Barbara and her visitors.

In Alphonsine's mistress, the Marquise de Leria, the almoner also
possessed a willing tale-bearer. She had avoided him since his refusal
to commend her ruined son to the favour of his imperial penitent. Now,
unasked, she had again approached him, and her explanation first gave
many an apparently unimportant communication from the servants its real
value.

The atmosphere of the court was her vital air. Even when she had
voluntarily offered to take Barbara under her charge, in a secluded
house in the suburb, she had been aware how greatly she would miss
the presence of royalty. Yet she would have endured far more difficult
things, for a thousand signs betrayed that this time his Majesty's
heart had not been merely superficially touched, and Barbara's traits of
character made it appear probable that, like many a beauty at the court
of Francis I of France, she might obtain an influence over the Emperor.
If this occurred, the marquise had found the most powerful tool for the
deliverance of her son.

This hope filled the old noblewoman's heart and brain. It was her last,
for the Emperor was the only person who could save the worthless idol of
her soul from ruin, and yet, when she had grovelled at his knees in her
despair, she received an angry repulse and the threat of being instantly
deprived of her position if she ever again attempted to speak to him
about this vexatious matter. She knew only too well that Charles would
keep his word, and therefore had already induced every person whom she
believed possessed even a small share of influence over the monarch
to intercede for her, but they had been no less sharply rebuffed than
herself; for the sovereign, usually so indulgent to the reckless pranks
of the young nobles, would not even hear the name of the aristocratic
sharper, who was said to have sold the plans of the fortifications to
France.

Charles now loved a woman whom, with swift presence of mind, she had
bound to herself, and what no one else had succeeded in doing Barbara
might accomplish.

Therefore the marquise had retired to the solitude which she hated,
and hourly humbled herself to cringing flattery of a creature whom, on
account of her birth, she scorned.

But Barbara was warned and, difficult as it often was for her to
withstand the humble entreaties to which