to arouse her ambition.

But in her childhood and youth Barbara had been accustomed to still
plainer living than she could grant herself in future, and she would have
been miserable in the most magnificent palace if she had been compelled
to relinquish her independence. Rather death in the Danube than to
dispense with it!

She was young, healthy, and vigorous, and it seemed like voluntary
mutilation to resign her liberty at twenty-one. But even had she felt
the need of the lonely cell, quiet contemplation, and more severe penance
than had been imposed upon her in the confessional, she would still have
remained in the world; for the more plainly the letter showed how eagerly
Charles desired to force her out of it, the more firmly she resolved to
remain in it. How many hopes this base epistle had destroyed; it seemed
as though it had killed the last spark of love in her soul!

Too much kindness leads to false paths scarcely more surely than the
contrary, and the Emperor's cruel decision destroyed and hardened many of
the best feelings in Barbara's heart, and prepared a place for resentment
and hatred.

The great sovereign's love, which had been the sunshine of her life, was
lost; her child had been taken from her; even the home that sheltered
her, and which hitherto she had regarded as a token of its father's
kindly care, was now withdrawn. A new life path must be found, but
she would not set out upon it from the Golden Cross, where her brief
happiness had bloomed, but from the place where she had experienced
the penury of her childhood and early youth.