The Emperor Charles’s hours were filled to the brim with work and social obligations.  The twinges of the gout had not wholly disappeared, but remained bearable.

The quiet good-breeding of the two young archduchesses pleased the Emperor, and their young brother Maximilian’s active mind and gay, chivalrous nature delighted him, though many a trait made him, as well as the confessor, doubt whether he did not incline more toward the evangelical doctrine than beseemed a son of his illustrious race.  But Charles himself, in his youth, had not been a stranger to such leanings.  If Maximilian was intrusted with the reins of government, he would perceive in what close and effective union stood the Church and the state.  Far from rousing his opposition by reproaches, the shrewd uncle won his affection and merely sowed in his mind, by apt remarks, the seeds which in due time would grow and bear their fruit.

The Austrians watched with sincere admiration the actually exhausting industry of the illustrious head of their house, for he allowed himself only a few hours’ sleep, and when Granvelle had worked with him until he was wearied, he buried himself, either alone or with some officers of high rank, in charts of the seat of war, in making calculations, arranging the levying of recruits and military movements, and yet did not withdraw from the society of his Viennese relatives and other distinguished guests.

Still, he did not forget Barbara.  The leech was daily expected to give a report of her health, and when, during the middle of June, Dr. Mathys expressed doubts of her recovery, it rendered him so anxious that his relatives noticed it, and attributed it to the momentous declaration of war which was on the eve of being made.

When the sufferer at last began to recover, his selfishness was satisfied with the course of events.  True, he thought of the late springtime of love which he had enjoyed as an exquisite gift of Fortune, and when he remembered many a tender interview with Barbara a bright smile flitted over his grave countenance.  But, on the whole, he was glad that this love affair had come to so honourable an end.  The last few weeks had claimed his entire time and strength so rigidly and urgently that he would have been compelled to refuse Barbara’s demands upon his love or neglect serious duties.

Besides, a meeting between Barbara and his nephew and young nieces could scarcely have been avoided, and this would have cast a shadow upon the unbounded reverence and admiration paid him by the wholly inexperienced, childlike young archduchesses, which afforded him sincere pleasure.  The confessor had taken care to bring this vividly before his mind.  While speaking of Barbara with sympathizing compassion, he represented her illness as a fresh token of the divine favour which Heaven so often showed to the Emperor Charles, and laid special stress upon the disadvantages which the longer duration of this love affair—­ though in itself, pardonable, nay, even beneficial—­would have entailed.