or her to
accept a gift for which she could not express her thanks as to give alms
without wishing well to the recipient, the leech eagerly endeavoured to
persuade her to use the sum bestowed according to the donor's wish. But
Barbara firmly persisted in her refusal, and when she parted from the
old man he could not be angry with her, for, as in the garden of the
little Prebrunn castle, he could not help saying to himself that the
wrong was not wholly on the side of the independent young woman.

The result in this case was the usual one when the weaker party succeeds
in maintaining itself against the superior power of the stronger.
Barbara set out on her way home with her head proudly erect, but she
soon asked herself whether this victory was not too dearly purchased.
In a few months John was to meet his father, and then might there not be
cause to fear that the opposition which she, his mother, had offered to
the Emperor, in order to escape an offence to her own pride, would prove
an injury to the son? She stopped, hesitating; but after a brief period
of reflection, she continued her walk. What she had done might vex the
monarch, but it must rather enhance than lower her value in his eyes,
and everything depended upon that. Charles would open the path to high
honours and royal splendour to the son of a haughty mother rather than
to the child of a narrow-minded woman, who would receive a gift without
being suffered to express her thanks.

She had done right, and rejoiced that this time she had obeyed the voice
of her imperious soul. She no longer desired to meet again the man whom
she loved. Her wish to look into his eyes once more before his death or
hers was fulfilled, and his glance, which had certainly been the last
that he could give her, had expressed the kind feeling and forgiveness
for which she had secretly yearned. So what he had done was surely not
intended to wound her. She understood his desire to obtain peace of mind
and his fear of entering into communication with her again, and from
this time it once more became a necessity to her to include him in her
prayers.

She left her home with a lighter heart, better satisfied with herself
than she had been for years. The Emperor Charles could not help thinking
of her now as she desired. The love which she had never wholly withdrawn
was again his, and the feeling of belonging to him exalted her pride and
brightened her clouded soul.

Frau Lamperi accompanied