He spent the anniversary of his father's death in the monastery of Del
Abrojo.

There, or previously, he had read the codicil in which his imperial
father acknowledged the boy Geronimo as his son.

Barbara now desired to learn the contents of the codicil and, as Wolf had
told her yesterday how the boy's fate had changed, he interrupted his
narrative and obeyed her wish.

As a widower, Charles confessed that he had had a son in Germany by an
unmarried woman. He had reason to wish that the boy should assume the
robe of a reformed order, but he must be neither forced nor persuaded to
do so. If he wished to remain in the world, he would settle upon him a
yearly income of from twenty to thirty thousand ducats, which was to pass
also to his heirs. Whatever mode of life he might choose, he commanded
his son Philip to honour him and treat him with due respect.

As on the day before, when Barbara had only learned in general terms what
the codicil contained, her soul to-day, while listening to the more
minute particulars, was filled with grateful joy.

Her sacrifice had not been vain. For years the fear of seeing her son
vanish in a monastery had darkened her days and nights, and Quijada and
Dona Magdalena had also probably dreaded that King Philip might confide
his half-brother to a reformed order, for the monarch had by no means
hastened to inform the anxious pair what he had determined.

It was not until the end of September that, upon the pretext of hunting,
he went to the monastery of San Pedro de la Espina, a league from
Villagarcia, and ordered Don Luis to seek him there with the boy. He was
to leave the latter wholly unembarrassed, and not even inform him that
the gentleman whom he would meet was the King.

His decision, he had added in the chilling manner characteristic of him,
would depend upon circumstances.

Quijada, with a throbbing heart, obeyed, but Geronimo had no suspicion of
what awaited him, and only wondered why his mother took so much trouble
about his dress, since they were merely going hunting. The tears
glittering in her eyes he attributed to the anxiety which she often
expressed when he rode with the hunters on the fiery young Andalusian
which his father had given him. He was then twelve years and a half old,
but might easily have been taken for fourteen.

"It was a splendid sight," Wolf went on, "as the erect figure of the dark
Don Luis, on his powerful black stallion, galloped beside the fai