ealing the resurrection of a love long buried
in this breast. And you, maiden, you will not belie this hope?"

Barbara clung to the back of the chair for support, while from her deeply
agitated soul struggled the exclamation: "This poor heart, my lord,
belongs to you--to you alone! How it mastered me, who can describe? But
here, my lord, now----"

Then the monarch whispered warmly: "You are right. What we have to say to
each other requires a more fitting time and a different place, and we
will find them."

Then he stepped back, drew himself up to his full height, waved his hand
to her with gracious condescension, and in a loud, imperious tone
commanded Appenzelder to begin the Benedictio.

"It rests with the lovely artist yonder," he added, glancing kindly at
Barbara, "whether she will now ennoble with her wonderful voice the
singing of the boy choir. Later she will probably allow us to hear the
closing melody of the 'Ecce tu pulchra es', which, with such good reason,
delighted the Queen of Hungary, and myself no less."

He seated himself at the table as he spoke, and devoted himself to the
dishes offered him so eagerly that it was difficult to believe in the
deep, yearning emotion that ruled him. Only the marquise at his side and
Malfalconnet, who had joined the attendant nobles, perceived that he ate
more rapidly than usual, and paid no attention to the preparation of the
viands.

The aged eyes, of the Emperor's watchful companion, to whom up to the
close of the repast he addressed only a few scattered words, also
detected something else. Rarely, but nevertheless several times, the
Emperor glanced at the boy choir, and when, in doing so, his Majesty's
eyes met the singer's, it was done in a way which proved to the marquise,
who had acquired profound experience at the French court, that an
understanding existed between the sovereign and the artist which could
scarcely date from that day. This circumstance must be considered, and
behind the narrow, wrinkled brow of the old woman, whose cradle had stood
in a ducal palace, thronged a succession of thoughts and plans precisely
similar to those which had filled the mind of the dressmaker and ex-maid
ere she gave Barbara her farewell kiss.

What the marquise at first had merely conjectured and put together from
various signs, became, by constant assiduous observation, complete
certainty when the singer, after a tolerably long pause, joined in
Josquin's hymn to the Vi