d the tavern, and there either the
carousing was so noisy that it became too much for him, or people often
had very violent political discussions about liberty and faith, which
he only half understood, though they used the Flemish tongue. And the
Danube, the native air, the familiar faces! In short, he could not stay
with his children, though he dearly loved his little godson Conrad; and
it pleased him to see his daughter more yielding and ready to render
service than ever before, and to watch her husband, who, as the saying
went at home, "was ready to let her walk over him."

The husband's intention of making the unbending iron pliant was wholly
changed; the recruiting officer whom his companions and subordinates
knew and feared as one of the sternest of their number, showed himself
to Barbara the most yielding of men. The passionate tenderness with
which he loved her had only increased with time, and the stern soldier's
subjection to her will went so far that, even when he would gladly have
expressed disapproval, he usually omitted to do so, because he dreaded
to lessen the favour which she showed him in place of genuine love, and
which he needed. Besides, she gave him little cause for displeasure; she
did her duty, and strove to render his outward life a pleasant one.

Even after her father had left her she remained a wife who satisfied his
heart. He had learned the coolness of her nature in his first attempts
to woo her in Ratisbon and, as at that time, he whom the service
frequently detained from her for long periods regarded it as a merit.

So he wrote her father letters expressing his gratification, and the
replies which the captain sent to Brussels were in a similar tone.

Barbara had obtained for him his own house, for which he had longed. He
felt comfortable there, and what he lacked in his home he found at the
Red Cock or the Black Bear. An elderly Landshut widow, a relative, acted
as his housekeeper and provided in the best possible manner for his
comfort.

Whoever met the stately mustering officer alone or arm in arm with his
beautiful young wife, whose golden hair had grown out again, must
have believed him a happy man; and so he would have been had not some
singular habits which Barbara possessed made him uneasy. At first the
reveries into which she often sank, and which were so unlike her former
self, had been still worse. He did not know that the improvement had
taken place since she had discovered