Pyramus Kogel was its bearer, and he had left the message that he would return the next day.  This time her father had written with his own hand.  The letters were irregular and crooked enough, but they were large, and there were not too many of them.  He now knew what people were saying about her.  It had pierced the very depths of his old heart and darkened his life.  But he could not curse her, because she was his only child, and also because he told himself how much easier her execrable vanity had made the Emperor Charles’s game.  Nor would he give her up as lost, and his travelling companion.  Pyramus, who was like a son to him, was ready to aid him, for his love was so true and steadfast that he still wished to make her his wife, and offered through him to share everything with her, even his honourable name.

If misfortune had made her modest, if it had crushed her wicked arrogance, and she was still his own dear child, who desired her father’s blessing, she ought not to refuse the faithful fellow who would bring her this letter, but accept his proposal.  On that, and upon that alone, his forgiveness would depend; it was for her to show how much or how little she valued it.

Barbara deciphered this epistle with varying emotions.

Was there no room for unselfish love in the breast of any man?

Her father, even he, was seeking to profit by that which united him to his only child.  To keep it, and to secure his blessing, she must give her hand to the unloved soldier who had shown him kindness and won his affection.

She again glanced indignantly over the letter, and now read the postscript also.  “Pyramus,” it ran, “will remain only a short time in Germany, and go from there directly to Brussels, where he is on duty, and thence to me in Antwerp.”

Barbara started, her large eyes sparkled brightly, and a faint flush suddenly suffused her cheeks.  The “plus ultra” was forever at an end for her.  Her boy was living in Brussels near his father; there she belonged, and she suddenly saw herself brought so near this unknown, brilliant city that it seemed like her real home.  Where else could she hope to rid herself of the nightmares that oppressed her except where she was permitted to see the man from whom nothing could separate her, no matter how cruelly he repulsed her?

The only suitable place for her, he thought, was the cloister.  No man, he believed in his boundless vanity, could satisfy the woman who had once received in his love.

He should learn the contrary!  He should hear—­nay, perhaps he should see—­that she was still desired, in spite of the theft which he had committed, in spite of the cruelty with which Fate had destroyed the best treasure that it had generously bestowed.

The recruiting officer was certainly a handsome man and, moreover, of noble birth.  Her father wished to have him for a son, and would forgive her if she gave him the hand for which he shed.