Not a day, scarcely an hour, had she forgotten him; for his sake she had endured great anguish willingly, and, in spite of his mute reserve—­she could say so to herself—­without any bitter feeling.  How she had suffered in parting from her child she alone knew.  Fate had raised her son to the summit of earthly grandeur and saved him from every clanger.  Providence had adorned him with its choicest gifts.  When she thought of the last account of him from the Duke of Ferdinandina, it seemed to her as if his life had hitherto resembled a triumphal procession, a walk through blooming gardens.

What could he mean by the “woe” after the “weal”?

John was to her the embodied fulfilment of the most ardent prayers.  The blessings she had besought for him, and for which she had placed her own heart on the rack, had become his-glory and splendour, fame and honour.

She had not been able to give them to him, and undoubtedly he owed much to his own powers and to the favour of his royal brother, but Barbara was firmly convinced that her prayers had raised him to his present grandeur.

What more could now be given to him?  Everything the human heart desires was already his.  His happiness was complete, and during recent years this, too, had cheered her heart and restored her lost capacity for the enjoyment of life.  She had been carried to the very verge of recklessness whenever bitter grief had oppressed her heart.

Her greatest sorrow had been that she was not permitted to see and embrace him, and the knowledge that another filled the place in his heart which belonged to her; but lesser troubles had also gnawed at her soul.

It had been especially hard to bear that, as the object of the greatest Emperor’s love and the mother of his son, she had so long felt that she was reluctantly tolerated, and not really recognised in the circles which should have been hers also.  Moreover, the consciousness of exercising an art over which she had once attained a mastery, yet never being able to shake off the painful doubt whether the applause that greeted her performance was genuine, spoiled many a pleasant hour.

Still, all these things had probably been only the tribute which she was compelled to pay for the proud joy of being the mother of such a son.

Now she at last felt safe from these malicious little attacks.  She had gained a good social position; she was not only valued as a singer, but always sought wherever the women of Ghent were earnestly pursuing music and singing.  The invitation to the Rassinghams flung wide the doors which had formerly been closed against her, and she might be sure of not being deemed the least important among the ladies of her party to whose hearts the cause of King and Church was dear.

When she returned to Ghent, even if Don John had not been appointed governor, she might even have ventured to make her house the rendezvous of the heads of the royalist party.