She sobbed aloud as she spoke and, overwhelmed by the grief which mastered her, covered her face with her hands.
Wolf said nothing. Another had robbed him of the woman he loved, and the greatest anguish of his life was not yet wholly conquered; but in this hour he felt that he had no right to be angry with Barbara, for it was to the greatest of great men that he had been forced to yield. He need not feel it a disgrace to have succumbed to him.
"Wawerl!" he again exclaimed, "in spite of the pleasant peace which I have found, I could envy you; for once, at least, the sun of love shone with full radiance into your soul. Your experience proves how bright and long is the afterglow if it is only real. This light, I believe, can never be extinguished, no matter how dense is the gloom which shadows life's pathway."
"Yes, indeed, Wolf," she replied dully, with a sorrowful shake of the head. "The gloomy night of which you speak has come, and it will last on and on with unvarying darkness, from year to year, perhaps until the end. What you call light is the remembrance of a single brief month of May. Does it possess the power to render me happy? No, my friend, a thousand times no! It only saves me from despair. But, in spite of everything"— and here her eyes sparkled radiantly—"in spite of all this, I would not change places with any one on earth; for, however dark clouds may conceal the sun, when in quiet hours it once breaks through them, Wolf, how brilliant everything grows around me!"
While speaking, she passed her hand across her brow and, as though seized with shame for her frank confession, exclaimed: "But we will let this subject drop. Only you must know one thing more. I shall never be wholly impoverished. What the past gave me was too rich and great; what I expect from the future is too precious for that. It is growing up in distant Spain and, if Heaven accepted the great sacrifice which I once made for the boy whom you call Geronimo, if he receives what I besought for him at that time and on every returning day, then, Wolf, I shall bear the burden of my woe like a light garland of rose leaves. Nay, more. Charles will regain his youth sooner than—be it in love or hate—he will ever forget me. This child guarantees that. It is and will always remain a bridge between us. He, too, can not forget the son, and if he does——"
"No, Barbara, no," interrupted Wolf, carried away by her passionate warmth. "The Emperor Charles is constantly thinking of his fair-haired boy. No one has told me so; but if he seeks in Spain the rest for which he longs, the thought of Geronimo—I am sure of that—is not the least powerful cause which draws him thither."
"Do you really think so?" asked Barbara with feverish anxiety.
"Yes," he answered firmly. "This very morning he commanded Don Luis to take the child from Leganes to Villagarcia and commit the education of Geronimo to his wife, that he may find him what he expects and desires."
Here he paused, and Barbara inquired uneasily, "And did he say nothing of
Geronimo's mother—of me?"
Wolf shook his head with silent compassion, and then reluctantly admitted: "I ventured to mention you, but, with one of those looks which no one can resist—you know them—he ordered me to be silent."