d;
and when, halfway down the path, she felt the need of resting on a bench
under a weeping ash, she did not obey it, but forced herself to totter
on.

Drops of perspiration covered her forehead when she entered the
frigidarium, but there the most delicious coolness greeted her. Here,
too, however, she could allow herself no rest, for the boys in the top of
the beech, and some neighbouring trees, were already shouting their clear
voices hoarse and waving caps and branches.

With trembling knees she forced herself to climb one after another of the
blocks that formed the staircase. When a slight faintness attacked her, a
stalactite afforded her support, and it passed as quickly as it came. Now
she had reached her goal. The rock on which she stood gave her feet
sufficient support, as it had done many times before.

Barbara needed a few minutes in this wonderfully cool atmosphere to
recover complete self-control. Only the wild pulsation of her heart still
caused a painful feeling; but if she was permitted to see the object of
her love once more, the world might go to ruin and she with it.

Now she gazed from the lofty window over the open country.

She had come just at the right time. Imperial halberdiers and horse
guards, galloping up and down, kept the centre of the road free. On the
opposite side of the highway which she overlooked was a dense, countless
multitude of citizens, peasants, soldiers, monks, women, and children,
who with difficulty resisted the pressure of those who stood behind them,
shoulder to shoulder, head to head. Barbara from her lofty station saw
hats, barets, caps, helmets, women's caps and coifs, fair and red hair on
uncovered heads and, in the centre of many, the priestly tonsure.

Then a column of dust advanced along the road from which the fanfare
resounded like the scream of the hawk from the gray fog. A few minutes
later, the cloud vanished; but the shouts of the multitude increased to
loud cheers when the heralds who rode at the head of the procession
appeared and raised their long, glittering trumpets to their lips. Behind
them, on spirited stallions, rode the wedding marshals, members of royal
families, in superb costumes with bouquets of flowers on their shoulders.

Now the tumult died away for a few minutes, and Barbara felt as though
her heart stood still, for the two stately men on splendid chargers who
now, after a considerable interval, followed them, were the royal
brothers, th