He longed to hear her voice, Master Adrian had said.

Surely, surely he himself had clothed the expression in a totally different, a hundred times warmer form.  How bewitchingly he, the great Emperor, understood how to flatter, and, with the memory of the charm of his manner, the thought of the blissful hours which she had enjoyed through his love returned to her mind.  It was in his power to bestow the highest happiness which earth can give; after all, his love outweighed everything that she must sacrifice for it.  To enjoy it, though but for a brief season, she ought not to refuse to bear the hardest, most terrible things, and, if what was now her secret became rumoured among the people, to accept humiliation, shame, and scorn.  Let the respectable women of Ratisbon, in their pride of virtue, maliciously cast stones at her; they could not look down upon her, for, as the object of the most illustrious sovereign’s love, she was raised far above them.

Meanwhile, with a feeling of defiant self-confidence, she was again braiding her hair.  But the mental firmness which she had regained did not last; more than once her hand faltered while the comb was dividing the wealth of her golden tresses.  How ardently Charles had praised their luxuriant beauty!-and to-day he was to rejoice in it again.  But why had not even one poor word from his own hand accompanied the summons?

Why had his messenger been only a valet?  Why had he wounded her so deeply the night before?

Why did leaden weights seem to hang upon her soul when she attempted to soar upward?

Oh, what a state of things!

Who had given the regent, to whom nothing attracted her, the right to dispose of her as though she were a chattel or her captive?

Had she, with her heart and her honour, also resigned her freedom to her lover?

If she had only possessed one, one single person to whom she could utter her thoughts!

Then her glance fell upon the knapsack, and she remembered Wolf.  He was to set out on his journey early the next morning; her lover expected her after vespers; so perhaps she would not be permitted to see him again, for she scarcely dared to hope that, after the rebuff which he had experienced, he would seek her again.  Yet she longed once more to clasp the hand of the man for whom she felt a sister’s affection and yet had so deeply wounded.

Without one kind farewell word from him, the bitterest drop of all would fall into the wormwood which already mingled in her happiness.  It seemed incomprehensible that he who from childhood had given her his whole heart would henceforth deny her every friendly feeling.  For her own sake, and also for his, this should not be.

How many had sought her love!  But perhaps the time would soon come when, on account of the one who must supply the place of all others, no one would care for her.  Then she wished at least to be sure of the sympathy, the friendship of this good loyal man.