Though Barbara at this time rarely left her own fireside, her husband
might often have wished that she would return to the conduct of the
previous winter, for he perceived the torturing anxiety which was
consuming her.

She could gaze for hours into vacancy, absorbed in profound meditation
and reveries, or play on the harp and lute, softly humming old songs to
herself. If at such times Pyramus asked, lovingly and modestly, that he
might not expose himself to an angry rebuff, what was burdening her soul,
his wife gave evasive answers or told him about the physician's advice,
and described how different the lives of both would be if she could
regain the lost melody of her voice. But when he, who did not grudge
the woman he loved the very best of everything, joyfully offered from
his savings the sum necessary to send her and Frau Lamperi to Ems,
in order, if possible, to commence the cure at once, she asserted that,
for many reasons, she could not begin this summer the treatment which
promised so much. True, the bare thought that if might once again
be allotted to her to raise her heart in song filled her with the same
blissful hope as ever; but if the report, which constantly grew more
definite, did not deceive, the Emperor's formal abdication was close at
hand, and to attend this great event seemed to her a duty of the heart,
a necessity which she could not avoid. In many a quiet hour she told
herself that Charles, when he had divested himself of all his honours and
become a mere man like the rest of the world, would draw nearer to her
boy, and through him to her. As an ordinary mortal, he would be able to
love, like every other father, the child that attracted him to Spain.
If in his life of meditation, far from the tumult of the world, the
strife for knowledge should lead him to look back into the past, and in
doing so he again recalled the days to which he owed his greatest