ver had she more deeply admired the grandeur of her imperial lover, and
with entire confidence she believed that this stupendous act of
renunciation would mark the beginning of a new life for her and her
child.

September and the first half of October passed like a fevered dream.

The abdication would certainly take place,

Charles had resolved to transfer all the crowns which adorned him to his
son Philip, and retire to a Spanish monastery.

Barbara also learned when and where the solemn ceremony was to take
place. Day after day she again mingled with the visitors to the palace,
and on the twenty-first of October she saw the eleven Knights of the
Golden Fleece, to whom he wished to restore the office of grand master,
enter the palace chapel.

How magnificently these greatest of all dignitaries were attired! how all
that she saw of this rare event in the palace chapel reminded her of the
solemn ceremonial at the Trausnitzburg at Landshut, and her resolve to
surrender her child, that it might possess the same splendour and honours
as its sister's husband!

The wishes cherished at that time were still unfulfilled; but the father
would soon meet the son again, and the greater affection this peerless
boy aroused in Charles, the more surely he would know how to bestow on
him honours as high or higher than he gave the daughter of Johanna Van
der Gheynst.

Five days after the assembling of the Knights of the Golden Fleece, the
solemn ceremony of the abdication would take place in the great hall
which joined the palace chapel.

She must obtain admittance to it. Her husband did what he could to aid
her and soothe her excitement by the gratification of so ardent a wish,
but his efforts were vain.

Barbara herself, however, did not remain idle, and tried her fortune with
those of high and low estate whom she had known in the past.

She could not trust to forcing her way in on the day of the ceremony of
abdication, for every place in the limited space assigned to spectators
had been carefully allotted, and no one would be permitted to enter the
palace without a pass. When, after many a futile errand, she had been
refused also by the lord chamberlain, she turned her steps to Baron
Malfalconnet's palace.

He had just swung himself into the saddle, and Barbara found him greatly
changed. The handsome major-domo had grown gray, his bright face was
wrinkled, and his smiling lips now wore a new, disagreeable, almost cruel
ex