The fourth person whose good will had been represented to her as valuable was the almoner, Pedro de Soto; but he, who usually understood how to pay homage to beautiful women in the most delicate manner, kept rigidly aloof.

True, he had placed no obstacle in the way of the late kindling of the heart of his imperial master, but since his servant’s report, from which it appeared that Barbara was on friendly terms with heretics, and therefore cherished but a lukewarm devotion to her own faith, she was no longer the same to him.  In Spain this would have been enough to deliver her to the Holy Inquisition.  Here, however, matters were different.  Everywhere he saw the lambs associating with the wolves, and the larger number of the relatives of the Emperor’s love had become converts to heresy.  Therefore indulgence was demanded, and De Soto would have gladly been convinced of Barbara’s orthodoxy under such difficult circumstances.  But if it proved that the girl not only associated with heretics, but inclined to their error, then gentle inaction must be transformed into inexorable sternness, even though the rejuvenating power which she exerted upon the monarch were tenfold stronger than it doubtless was; for what danger might threaten the Emperor and Christianity from the bewitching woman who seemed to love Charles, if she undertook to influence him in favour of the new doctrines, which, in the eyes of every earnest Dominican, the Emperor treated far too leniently!

He, the confessor, even knew that Charles considered several demands of the Protestants to which the Church could never consent, entirely justifiable—­nay, that he deemed a reformation of the Church by the council now in session at Trent extremely desirable.

Therefore it was a duty to withhold from him every influence which could favour these pernicious views and wishes, and Pedro de Soto had also been young and knew only too well what power so beautiful a woman, with such bewitching gifts, could exert upon the man whose heart cherishes her.

So, immediately after Barbara’s entrance into Prebrunn, the confessor adopted his measures.  Although the conversation to which he subjected her had resulted in her favour, he had deemed it beneficial to place a priest who was devoted to him among the ecclesiastics in the little castle.

To surround her with spies chosen from the lay class was repugnant to his lofty nature.  Besides, they would have been superfluous; for a short time before his servant Cassian had asked permission to marry the marquise’s French maid, and Alphonsine, who was neither young nor pretty, was inclined to all sorts of intrigues.  She supplied slow, pious Cassian’s deficiencies in the best possible manner.  A chance word from the distinguished prelate had sufficed to make it their duty to watch Barbara and her visitors.

In Alphonsine’s mistress, the Marquise de Leria, the almoner also possessed a willing tale-bearer.  She had avoided him since his refusal to commend her ruined son to the favour of his imperial penitent.  Now, unasked, she had again approached him, and her explanation first gave many an apparently unimportant communication from the servants its real value.