ove, her eyes
suddenly flashed, and there was a strange quiver around the corners of
her mouth as she thought: "Keep that opinion. But I would not exchange
for a long life, overflowing with the happiness which you, dear, good
fellow, could offer me, the brief May weeks that placed me among the few
who are permitted to taste the highest measure of happiness."

Yet she listened with sincere sympathy to what he had heard of
Villagarcia and Magdalena de Ulloa, Quijada's wife, and what he expected
to find there and in Valladolid.

It pleased her most to know that he would be permitted to return
sometimes to the Netherlands. When once there, he must seek her out
wherever her uncertain destiny had cast her.

When, in saying this, her hoarse voice failed and tears of pain and
sorrow filled her eyes, emotion overpowered him also and, after he had
again urged her to submit to the will of their imperial master, he tore
himself away with a last farewell.

The ardent, long-cherished passion which had brought the young knight
full of hope to Ratisbon had changed to compassion. With drooping head,
disappointed, and heavily burdened with anxiety for the future of the
woman who had exerted so powerful an influence upon his fate, he left
the home of his childhood; but Barbara saw him go with the sorrowful
fear that, in the rural solitude which awaited him in Spain, her
talented friend would lose his art and every loftier aspiration; yet
both felt sure that, whatever might be the course of their lives, each
would hold a firm place in the other's memory.

A few hours after this farewell Barbara received a letter from the
Council, in which Wolf Hartschwert secured to her and her father during
their lives the free use of the house which he had inherited in Red
Cock Street, with the sole condition of allowing his faithful Ursula to
occupy the second story until her death.

The astonished girl at once went to express her thanks for so much
kindness; but Wolf had left Ratisbon a short time before, and when
Barbara entered the house she found old Ursula at the window with her
tear-stained face resting on her clasped hands. When she heard her name
called, she raised her little head framed in the big cap, and as soon as
she recognised the unexpected visitor she cast so malevolent a glance at
her that a shiver ran through the girl's frame.

After a few brief words of greeting, Barbara left the old woman,
resolving not to enter the house soo