While he was descending the stairs with her, Barbara noticed one of the 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.

How noble and yet how easy was the bearing of the dignitary, who was still less than thirty years old!

His figure was only slightly above middle height.  What gave it the air of such royal stateliness?

Certainly it was not merely his dress, which consisted wholly of velvet, silk, and satin, with the gold of the Fleece that hung below the lace ruff at his throat.  True, the colours of the costume were becoming.  Dark violet and golden yellow alternated in the slashed doublet and wide breeches.  His father had worn similar apparel when he confessed his love for her.

Should Barbara regard this as a good omen or an evil one?

He was not yet aware of her arrival for, completely absorbed in the subject of their conversation, he was talking with his private secretary Escovedo.

How animated his beautiful features became! how leonine he looked when he indignantly shook his head with its wealth of golden hair!

Oh, yes!  Women’s hearts must indeed fly to him, and Barbara now understood what she had heard of the beautiful Diana of Sorrento, and the no less beautiful Alaria Mendoza, and their love for him.

Thus she had imagined him.  Yet no!  His outer man, in its proud patrician beauty and winning charm, even surpassed her loftiest expectation.  One thing alone surprised her:  the seriousness of his youthful features and the lines upon his lofty brow.