remain with her.

This caused much weeping and lamenting, and such passionate excitement
that the bereaved mother nearly lost her life; but Dr. Mathys devoted the
utmost care to her, and did not leave Ratisbon until after three weeks,
when he could commit the nursing to the experienced Sister Hyacinths.

But for the trouble in her throat, Barbara would have been physically as
well as ever; her mental suffering was never greater.

She felt robbed and desolate, like the bird whose nestlings are stolen by
the marten; for all that might have made her ruined life precious had
been taken, and the man to whom she had surrendered her dearest treasure
did not even express, by one poor word, his gratitude and joy. No, he
seemed to have forgotten her as well as her future.

Frau Traut had left her with the promise that she would sometimes send
her news of her boy's health, yet she, too, remained silent, and was
deceiving her confidence. She could not know that the promise-breaker
thought of her often enough, but that she had been most strictly
forbidden by her imperial master to tell the boy's mother his abode or to
hold any further intercourse with her.

How little Charles must care for her, since he now showed such deep
neglect and found no return for all that she had sacrificed to him save
cruel sternness! Yet the precious gift for which he was indebted to her
must have afforded special pleasure to the man who attached such great
value to omens, for it gave him the right to cherish the most daring
hopes for the future of his boy. The fact that he was born on his
father's birthday seemed to her an especial favour of heaven, and the old
chaplain, who still remained with her, had discovered other singular
circumstances which foreshadowed that the son would become the father's
peer; for on the twenty-fourth of February Charles V had been crowned,
and on the same day he had won at Pavia his greatest victory.

This had been the most brilliant day in the ruler's life, so rich in
successes, and now it had also become the birthday of the boy whom she
had given him and resigned that he might lead it to grandeur, splendour,
and magnificence.

Nothing was more improbable than that the man whose faithful memory
retained everything, and whose active mind discovered what escaped the
notice of others, should have overlooked this sign from heaven. And yet
she vainly waited for a token of pleasure, gratitude, remembrance. How
this pierce