“Is the man of the ‘More, farther,’ also learning to be content?” asked Barbara anxiously.  Wolf rose, answering firmly:  “No, certainly not!  His eyes still sparkle as brightly in his haggard face as if he had by no means given up the old motto.  True, Don Luis declares that rest is the one thing for which he longs, and you will see that he knows how to obtain it; but what he means by it only contains fresh conflicts and struggles.  His ‘Plus ultra’ had rendered him the greatest of living men; now he desires to become the least of the least, because the Lord promises to make the last the first.  I was received by the regent like a friend.  She confided to me that he often repeats the Saviour’s words, ‘Go, sell all that thou halt, and follow me.’  He is determined to cast aside throne, sceptre, and purple, power and splendour, and Don Luis believes that he will know how to gratify this desire, like every other.  What a resolution!  But there are special motives concealed beneath it.  Nothing but death can bring repose to this restless spirit, and if he finds the quiet for which he longs, what tasks he will set himself!  Don Philip promises, as an obedient son, to continue to wield the sceptre according to the policy of the father who intrusts it to him.”

“And then?” asked Barbara eagerly.

“Then will begin the life in the imitation of Christ, which hovers before him.”

“Here in the Brabant palace?” interposed Barbara incredulously.  “Here, where his neighbours, the brilliant nobles, enjoy life in noisy magnificence; here, among the ambassadors, the thousand rumours from the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain; here, where the battle against the heretical and liberty-loving yearnings of the citizens never ceases—­how can he hope to find peace and composure here?”

“He is far from it,” Wolf eagerly interrupted. “’Farewell till we meet again at no distant day upon Spanish soil!’ were the parting words of my gracious mistress.  Will you promise secrecy?”

Barbara held out her hand with a significant glance; but Wolf, in a lower tone, continued:  “He expects to find in Spain the peaceful spot for which he longs.  There he will commend himself to the mercy of God, and prepare for the true life which death is to him.  There he expects to be free from time-killing business, and to grant his mind that which he has long desired and a thousand duties forced him to withhold.  There, in quiet leisure, he hopes to strive for knowledge and to penetrate deeply into all the new things which were discovered, invented, created, and improved during his reign, and of which he was permitted to learn far too little thoroughly.  He will endeavour to gain a better understanding of what stirs, fires, angers, and divides the theologians.  He desires to pursue in detail the vast new discoveries of the astronomers, which even amid the pressure of duties he had explained to him.  His inquisitive mind seeks to know the new discoveries of navigation, the distant countries which it brought to view.  He hopes to search into the plans and works of the architects of fortifications and makers of maps and, by no means least, he is anxious to become thoroughly familiar with the inventions of mechanicians, which have so long aroused his interest.”