How repulsive these envious, hypocritical people were!  How she hated everything that threatened to estrange her lover’s heart!  To them also belonged the scoundrel who, she supposed, had betrayed the sale of the star to the Emperor.  She resolved to confess to Charles how she had been led to commit this offence, which was indeed hard to forgive.  Perhaps all would then be well again, for in this unfortunate action she could recognise the sole wrong which she had ever inflicted upon her lover.  She could not help attributing his humiliating manner to it alone, for her love had always remained the same, and only yesterday, after she had sung before the Duke of Saxony, Appenzelder, who never flattered, had assured her that her voice had gained in power, her expression in depth, and she herself felt that it was so.

Music was still the firmest bond that united her to her lover.  So long as her art remained faithful, he could not abandon her.  This conviction was transformed into certainty when the final performance began, and the Ratisbon choir, under the direction of Damian Feys, commenced the mighty hymn with which the composer, Jean Courtois, had greeted the Emperor Charles in Cambray: 

“Venite populi terrai”—­“Come hither, ye nations of the earth”—­this motet for four voices called imperiously to all mankind like a joyous summons.

“Ave Cesar, ave majestas sacra,” sounded in solemn, religious tones the greeting to the greatest of monarchs.  It seemed to transport the listener to the summit of the cathedral, as the choir now called to the ruler that the earth was full of his renown.  The Ratisbon singers and the able Feys did their best, and this mighty act of homage of all the nations of the earth by no means failed to produce its effect upon him to whom it was addressed.

While Barbara listened, deeply agitated, she did not avert her eyes from her lover’s face, which was brightly illumined by a pyramid of candles on each side of the two thrones.

Every trace of weariness, indifference, and discomfort had vanished from Charles’s features.  His heart, like hers—­she knew it—­was now throbbing higher.  If he had just been enduring pain, this singing must have driven it away or lessened it, and he had certainly felt gratefully what power dwells in the divine art.

This noble composition, Barbara realized it, would again draw her near her lover, and the confirmation of this hope was not delayed, for as soon as the last notes of the motet and the storm of applause that followed had died away, the Emperor, amid the renewed roar of the artillery, rose and looked around him—­surely for her.

The good citizens of Ratisbon!  No matter how much more bunting they had cut up in honour of the Saxon duke than of the Emperor, how bombastic were the verses composed and repeated in praise of Maurice, this paean of homage put all their efforts to shame.  It suited only one, lauded a grandeur and dignity which stood firm as indestructible cliffs, and which no one here possessed save the Emperor Charles.