l it a disgrace to have succumbed to him.

"Wawerl!" he again exclaimed, "in spite of the pleasant peace which I
have found, I could envy you; for once, at least, the sun of love shone
with full radiance into your soul. Your experience proves how bright
and long is the afterglow if it is only real. This light, I believe, can
never be extinguished, no matter how dense is the gloom which shadows
life's pathway."

"Yes, indeed, Wolf," she replied dully, with a sorrowful shake of the
head. "The gloomy night of which you speak has come, and it will last
on and on with unvarying darkness, from year to year, perhaps until the
end. What you call light is the remembrance of a single brief month
of May. Does it possess the power to render me happy? No, my friend,
a thousand times no! It only saves me from despair. But, in spite of
everything"--and here her eyes sparkled radiantly--"in spite of all
this, I would not change places with any one on earth; for, however dark
clouds may conceal the sun, when in quiet hours it once breaks through
them, Wolf, how brilliant everything grows around me!"

While speaking, she passed her hand across her brow and, as though
seized with shame for her frank confession, exclaimed: "But we will let
this subject drop. Only you must know one thing more. I shall never be
wholly impoverished. What the past gave me was too rich and great; what
I expect from the future is too precious for that. It is growing up in
distant Spain and, if Heaven accepted the great sacrifice which I once
made for the boy whom you call Geronimo, if he receives what I besought
for him at that time and on every returning day, then, Wolf, I shall
bear the burden of my woe like a light garland of rose leaves. Nay,
more. Charles will regain his youth sooner than--be it in love or
hate--he will ever forget me. This child guarantees that. It is and will
always remain a bridge between us. He, too, can not forget the son, and
if he does----"

"No, Barbara, no," interrupted Wolf, carried away by her passionate
warmth. "The Emperor Charles is constantly thinking of his fair-haired
boy. No one has told me so; but if he seeks in Spain the rest for which
he longs, the thought of Geronimo--I am sure of that--is not the least
powerful cause which draws him thither."

"Do you really think so?" asked Barbara with feverish anxiety.

"Yes," he answered firmly. "This very morning he commanded Don Luis to
take the child from Leganes to Villa