“Do you know, Frau Barbara, that you were never more beautiful and charming than just at this very time?  Perhaps it is the mourning which is so becoming to your pink-and-white complexion and the somewhat subdued lustre of your golden hair.  But why do I feed your vanity with such speeches?  Because I think that our gracious lord, who for many a long day has not bestowed even the least side glance upon any of your bewitching sex, noticed the same thing.  And now you will presently be obliged to admit that the old messenger of bad news in Ratisbon, whom you requited so ill for his unpleasant errand, can also bring good tidings; for the Emperor Charles—­in spite of the abdication, he will always be that until he, too, succumbs to the power which makes us all equal—­his Majesty sends you his greetings, and the message that he desires to do what he can to restore to you the art in which you attained such rare mastery.  He places at your disposal—­this time, at least, he was not economical—­a sum which will take you to the healing springs four or five times, nay, oftener still.”

Barbara had listened thus far, speechless with joyful surprise.  If it was Charles to whom she owed her recovery, the gift of song which it restored would possess tenfold value for her, if that was conceivable.  She was already beginning to charge the leech to be the bearer of her gratitude and joy, but he did not let her finish, and went on to mention the condition which his Majesty attached to this gift.

Barbara must never mention it to any one, and must promise the physician to refrain from all attempts to thank him either in person or by letter in short, to avoid approaching him in any way.

The old physician had communicated this stipulation—­which his royal patient had strictly associated with the gift—­to Barbara in the emphatic manner peculiar to him, but she had listened, at first in surprise, then with increasing indignation.  The donation which, as a token of remembrance and kind feeling, had just rendered her so happy, now appeared like mere alms.  Nay, the gift would make her inferior to the poorest beggar, for who forbids the mendicant to utter his “May God reward you”?

Charles kept her aloof as if she were plague-stricken.  Perhaps it was because he feared that if he saw her once he might desire a second and a third meeting.  But no matter.  She would accept no aid at the cost of so severe an offence to her pride, least of all when it came from the man who had already wounded her soul often and painfully enough.

The startled physician perceived what was passing in her mind, and when, not passionately as in her youth, but with cool composure, she requested Dr. Mathys to tell his master that it would be as impossible for her to accept a gift for which she could not express her thanks as to give alms without wishing well to the recipient, the leech eagerly endeavoured to persuade her to use the sum bestowed according to the donor’s wish.  But Barbara firmly persisted in her refusal, and when she parted from the old man he could not be angry with her, for, as in the garden of the little Prebrunn castle, he could not help saying to himself that the wrong was not wholly on the side of the independent young woman.