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.

Queen Mary’s boy choir was to remain in Ratisbon some time longer, and whenever the monarch attended their performances—­which was almost daily-the longing for Barbara awoke with fresh strength.  Even in the midst of the most arduous labour he considered the question how it might be possible to keep her near him—­not, it is true, as his favourite, but as a singer, and his inventive brain hit upon a successful expedient.

By raising her father to a higher rank, he might probably have had her received by his sister Mary among her ladies in waiting, but then there would always have been an unwelcome temptation existing.  If, on the other hand, Barbara would decide to take the veil, an arrangement could easily be made for him to hear her often, and her singing might then marvellously beautify the old age, so full of suffering and destitute of pleasure, that awaited him.  He realized more and more distinctly that it was less her rare beauty than the spell of her voice and of her art which had constrained him to this late passion.

The idea that she would refuse to accept the fate to which he had condemned her was incomprehensible to his sense of power, and therefore did not occur to his mind.

Yet, especially when he was bearing pain, he did not find it difficult to silence even this wish for the future, for then memories of the last deeply clouded hours of their love bond forced themselves upon him.

He saw her swinging like a Bacchante in the dance with the young Saxon duke; the star which had been thrown away appeared before his eyes, and his irritated soul commanded him never to see her again.

But the suffering of a person whom we have once loved possesses a reconciling power, and he who usually forgot no insult, even after the lapse of years, was again disposed to forgive her, and reverted to the wish to continue to enjoy her singing.