lonely cell, quiet contemplation, and more severe
penance than had been imposed upon her in the confessional, she would
still have remained in the world; for the more plainly the letter showed
how eagerly Charles desired to force her out of it, the more firmly
she resolved to remain in it. How many hopes this base epistle had
destroyed; it seemed as though it had killed the last spark of love in
her soul!

Too much kindness leads to false paths scarcely more surely than the
contrary, and the Emperor's cruel decision destroyed and hardened
many of the best feelings in Barbara's heart, and prepared a place for
resentment and hatred.

The great sovereign's love, which had been the sunshine of her life, was
lost; her child had been taken from her; even the home that sheltered
her, and which hitherto she had regarded as a token of its father's
kindly care, was now withdrawn. A new life path must be found, but
she would not set out upon it from the Golden Cross, where her brief
happiness had bloomed, but from the place where she had experienced the
penury of her childhood and early youth.

The very next afternoon she moved into Wolf's house. Sister Hyacinthe
was obliged to return to her convent, so no one accompanied her except
Frau Lamperi. She had become attached to Barbara, and therefore remained
in her service instead of returning to the Queen of Hungary. True, she
had not determined to do so until her mistress had promised to remain
only a few weeks in Ratisbon at the utmost, and then move to Brussels,
where she longed to be.

Ratisbon was no home for the Emperor's former favourite. Life in her
native city would have been one long chain of humiliations, now that she
had nothing to offer her fellow-citizens except the satisfaction of a
curiosity which was not always benevolent.

But where should she go, if not to the country where her child's father
lived, where, she had reason enough to believe, the infant would be
concealed, and where she might hope to see again and again at a distance
the man to whom hate united her no less firmly than love?

This prospect offered her the greatest attraction, and yet she desired
nothing, nothing more from him except to be permitted to watch his
destiny. It promised to be no happy one, but this fact robbed the wish
of no charm.

Besides, the desire for a richer life again began to stir within her
soul, and what sustenance for the eye and ear Gombert, Frau Traut, and
now also La