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."

Barbara's cheeks flamed with resentment and shame, but she only said,
smiling bitterly: "Grief is grief, and this new sorrow does not change
the old one. He knows best that I am something more than the poor
officer's wife in the Saint-Gory quarter; but I look down, with just
pride, on all the others who believe me to be nothing else. Now and
always, even long after I am dead, the world will be obliged to recognise
the claim which elevates me far above the throng: I am the mother of an
Emperor's son!"

She had uttered these words with uplifted head; but Wolf gazed in
wondering admiration into the beautiful face, radiant with proud self-
satisfaction.

He wished to leave her with this image before his soul, and therefore
hurriedly extended his hand and said farewell, after promising to fulfil
her entreaty never to come to Brussels without showing by a visit that he
remembered her.




CHAPTER XIV.

Pyramus Kogel, on his return, saw nothing of the deep impression which
Wolf's visit had made upon Barbara. She merely mentioned it, and
carelessly said that the friend of her youth had been delighted with
the children.