With difficulty he sank into the arm-chair which stood ready for him, and, panting for breath, asked himself whether every joy had indeed vanished.  No!

Music still stirred his benumbed heart to swifter throbbing.  He thought of the pleasure which the previous evening had afforded, and suddenly it seemed as if he again heard the “Quia amore langueo”—­“Because I long for love”—­that had touched his soul the day before.

Yes, he, too, still longed for love, for a different, a warmer feeling than the lukewarm blood of his royal mother had bestowed upon her children, or the devotion of the sister to whom the chase was dearer than aught else, certainly than his society.

But such thoughts did not befit this room, which was consecrated to serious reflections.  The anniversary summoned him to far different feelings.  Yet, powerfully as he resisted them, his awakened senses continued to demand their rights, and, while he closed his eyes and pressed his brow against the base of the altar covered with black cloth, changeful images of happier days rose before him.  He, too, had rejoiced in a vigorous, strong, and pliant body.  In the jousts he had been sure of victory over even dreaded opponents; as a bull-fighter he had excelled the matador; as a skilful participant in riding at the ring, as well as a tireless hunter, he had scarcely found his equal.  In the prime of his youth the hearts of many fair women had throbbed warmly for him, but he had been fastidious.  Yet where he had aimed at victory, he had rarely failed.

The sensuous, fair-haired Duchess of Aerschot, the dark-eyed Cornelia Annoni of Milan, the devout Dolores Gonzaga, with her large, calm, enthusiastic eyes, and again and again, crowding all the others into the background, the timid Johanna van der Gheynst, who under her delicate frame concealed a volcano of ardent passion.  She had given him a daughter whose head was now adorned by a crown.  In spite of the brief duration of their love bond, she had been clearer to him than all the rest—­clearer even than the woman to whom the sacrament of marriage afterward united him.  And she of whom seven years ago death had bereft him?

At this question a bitter smile hovered around his full lips.  How much better love than hers he had known!  And how easy Isabella had rendered it not to weary of her, for during his long journeys and frequent dangerous campaigns, instead of accompanying him, she had led in some carefully guarded castle a life that suited her quiet tastes.

A sorrowful smile curled his lips as he recalled the agreement which they had made just before a separation.  At that time both were young, yet how willingly she had accepted his proposal that, when age approached, they should separate forever, that she in one cloister and he in another might prepare for the end of life!

What reply would a woman with true love in her heart have made to such a demand?