searching glances he secretly cast at her, and wondered what this man's
pure, keen eyes had probably discovered.

The spacious apartment into which she was now ushered was hung with
costly bright-hued Oriental rugs.

"Gifts from the widow of the Turkish lord high admiral," the priest
whispered, pointing to the superb textures, and Barbara nodded. She knew
how he had obtained them, but the passionate agitation of her soul
deprived her of the power to inform the monk of this knowledge, of which
probably she would usually have boasted to a friend of her son so worthy
of all respect.

The folding doors of the adjoining room were open. Surely John was
there, and how gladly she would have rushed toward it! But the confessor
asked her to sit down, as the captain-general still had several orders to
give. Then he entered the other room.

Barbara, panting for breath, looked after him and, as she glanced through
the open door, it seemed as though her heart stood still.

Yonder aristocratic gentleman, in the full prime of youthful beauty, must
be her son.

The man from whom she had so long been parted looked like the apparition
of the Count Egmont, at whom she had once gazed full of admiration, with
the wish that her John might resemble him; only she thought her John,
with his open brow and floating, waving golden locks, far handsomer than
the unfortunate victor of St. Quentin and Gravelines.