r of little boys would not have
borne comparison with the Emperor's son, yet they were both good,
well-formed children, and clung to her with filial affection. Why could
she not even now, when Heaven itself forced her to be content, free
herself from the fatal imperial "More, farther," which, both for the
monarch and for her, had lost its power to command and to promise?

When, on the evening after Wolf's visit, she bent over the children
sleeping in their little bed, she felt as a nurse may who comes from a
patient who has succumbed to a contagious disease and now fears
communicating it to her new charge. Suppose that the gracious intercessor
should punish her broken vow by raising her hand against the children
sleeping there? This dread seized the guilty mother with irresistible
power, and she wondered that the cheeks of the little sleepers were not
already glowing with fever.

She threw herself penitently on her knees before the priedieu, and the
first atonement to be made for the broken vow was apparent. She must
allow Wolf to restore peace to Dona Magdalena's troubled mind. This was
not easy, for she had cherished her resentment against this woman's
husband, through whom she had experienced bitter suffering, for many
years. His much-lauded wife herself was a stranger to her, yet she could
not think of her except with secret dislike; it seemed as if a woman who
bore the separation from the man she loved so patiently, and yet won all
hearts, must go through life--unless she was a hypocrite--with cold fish
blood.

Besides----

What right had this lady to the boy to whom Barbara gave birth, whose
love would now be hers had it not been wrested from her? What was denied
to her would be lavished upon this favoured woman, and when she bestowed
gifts upon the glorious child for whom every pulse of her being longed,
and repaid his love with love, it was regarded as a fresh proof of her
noble kindness of heart. To withhold from this woman something which
would give her fresh happiness and relieve her of sorrow might have
afforded her a certain satisfaction. To bless those who curse and
despitefully use us was certainly the hardest command; but on the
priedieu she vowed to the Virgin to fulfil it, and in a calmer mood than
before she bent over the boys to kiss them.

The next day glided by in painful anxiety, for Wolf did not return. The
following morning and afternoon also passed without bringing him. Not
until the rays