Her soul was again drawn toward the sorely punished man more strongly
than she would have deemed possible a short time before and, after his
return to Brussels, she gazed with an aching heart at the ashen-gray face
of the sufferer, marked by lines of deep sorrow.

Now he really did resemble a broken old man. Barbara rarely mingled with
the people, but she sometimes went with her husband and several
acquaintances outside the gate, or heard from the few intimate friends
whom she had made, the neighbours, and the peddlers who came to her
house, with what cruel harshness the heretics were treated.

When the monarch, it was often said, was no longer the Charles to whom
the provinces owed great benefits and who had won many hearts, but
his Spanish son, Philip, the chains would be broken, and this shameful
bloodshed would be stopped; but her husband declared such predictions
idle boasting, and Barbara willingly believed him because she wished that
he might be right.

In the officer's eyes all heretics deserved death, and he agreed with
Barbara that the Emperor Charles's wisdom took the right course in all
cases.

His son Philip was obedient to his father, and would certainly continue
to wield the sceptre according to his wishes.

The breath of liberty, which was beginning to stir faintly in the
provinces through which he so often travelled, could not escape Pyramus's
notice, but he saw in it only the mutinous efforts of shameless rebels
and misguided men, who deserved punishment. The quiet seclusion in which