toward it! But the confessor asked
her to sit down, as the captain-general still had several orders to give.
Then he entered the other room.

Barbara, panting for breath, looked after him and, as she glanced through
the open door, it seemed as though her heart stood still.

Yonder aristocratic gentleman, in the full prime of youthful beauty, must
be her son.

The man from whom she had so long been parted looked like the apparition
of the Count Egmont, at whom she had once gazed full of admiration, with
the wish that her John might resemble him; only she thought her John,
with his open brow and floating, waving golden locks, far handsomer than
the unfortunate victor of St. Quentin and Gravelines.

How noble and yet how easy was the bearing of the dignitary, who was
still less than thirty years old!

His figure was only slightly above middle height. What gave it the air of
such royal stateliness?

Certainly it was not merely his dress, which consisted wholly of velvet,
silk, and satin, with the gold of the Fleece that hung below the lace
ruff at his throat. True, the colours of the costume were becoming. Dark
violet and golden yellow alternated in the slashed doublet and wide
breeches. His father had worn similar apparel when he confessed his love
for her.

Should Barbara regard this as a good omen or an evil one?

He was not yet aware of her arrival for, completely absorbed in the
subject of their conversation, he was talking with his private secretary
Escovedo.

How animated his beautiful features became! how leonine he looked when he
indignantly shook his head with its wealth of golden hair!

Oh, yes! Women's hearts must indeed fly to him, and Barbara now
understood what she had heard of the beautiful Diana of Sorrento, and the
no less beautiful Alaria Mendoza, and their love for him.

Thus she had imagined him. Yet no! His outer man, in its proud patrician
beauty and winning charm, even surpassed her loftiest expectation. One
thing alone surprised her: the seriousness of his youthful features and
the lines upon his lofty brow.

Why did her favourite of fortune bear these traces of former anxieties?

Now the priest interrupted him. Had he told her John of her entrance?

Yet that was scarcely possible, for his face revealed no trace of filial
pleasure. On the contrary. He rallied his courage, as if he were about to
step into a cold river, straightened himself, and pressed his right hand,
clinched into