if he asked her whether she intended always to defy him, she would show
him that Barbara Blomberg was not to be intimidated; that she knew how to
defend herself and, if necessary, to suffer; that she would be ready to
risk everything to baffle his design and carry out her own resolve. Then
he should see that nations and kings, nay, even the Holy Father in Rome-
as Charles had once sacrilegiously done--may be vanquished and humbled;
that the hard, precious stone may be crushed and solid metal melted, but
the steadfast will of a woman battling for what she holds dearest can not
be broken.

The sedan chair had already passed through half a dozen citadel gates and
left one solid wall behind it, but now a second rose, with a lofty door
set in its strong masonry.

When Barbara had formerly ascended the Trausnitz, with what pleasure she
had gazed at the deep moat at her left, the pheasants, the stately
peacocks, and other feathered creatures, as well as a whole troop of
lively monkeys; but this time she saw nothing except that the heavy iron-
bound portals of the entrance opened before her, that the drawbridge,
though the sun was close to the western horizon, was still lowered, and
that Quijada stood at the end, motioning to the bearers to set the sedan
chair on the ground.

Now the major-domo opened the door, and this time he was not alone;
Barbara saw behind him a woman whose appearance, spite of her angry
excitement, inspired confidence.

The questions which, without heeding his companion, she now with crimson
cheeks poured upon Don Luis as if fairly frantic, he answered in brief,
businesslike words.