No, no, Isabella had felt as little genuine love for him as he for her!  Her death had been a sorrow to him, but he had shed no tears over it.

He could not weep.  He no longer knew whether he was able to do so when a child.  Since his beard had grown, at any rate, his eyes had remained dry.  The words of the Roman satirist, that tears were the best portion of all human life, returned to his memory.  Would he himself ever experience the relief which they were said to afford the human heart?

But who among the living would he have deemed worthy of them?  When his insane mother died, he could not help considering the poor Queen fortunate because Heaven had at last released her from such a condition.  Of the children whom his wife Isabella and Johanna van der Gheynst had given him, he did not even think.  An icy atmosphere emanated from his son Philip which froze every warm feeling that encountered it.  He remembered his daughter with pleasure, but how rarely he was permitted to enjoy her society!  Besides, he had done enough for his posterity, more than enough.  To increase the grandeur of his family and render it the most powerful reigning house in the world, he had become prematurely old; had undertaken superhuman tasks of toil and care; even now he would permit himself no repose.  The consciousness of having fulfilled his duty to his family and the Church might have comforted him in this hour, but the plus ultra—­more, farther—­which had so often led him into the conflict for the dream of a world sovereignty, the grandeur of his own race, and against the foes of his holy faith, now met the barrier of a more powerful fate.  Instead of advancing, he had seemed, since the defeat at Algiers, to go backward.

Besides, how often the leech threatened him with a speedy death if he indulged himself at table with the viands which suited his taste!  Yet the other things that remained for him to enjoy scarcely seemed worth mentioning.  To restore unity to the Church, to make the crowns which he wore the hereditary possessions of his house, were two aims worthy of the hardest struggles, but, unless he deceived himself, he could not hope to attain them.  Thus life, until its end—­perhaps wholly unexpectedly—­arrived within a brief season, offered him nothing save suffering and sacrifice, disappointment, toil, and anxieties.

With little cheer or elevation of soul, he looked up and rang the bell.  Two chamberlains and Master Adrian appeared, and while Baron Malfalconnet, who did not venture to jest in this spot, offered him his arm and the valet the crutch, his confessor, Pedro de Soto, also entered the black-draped room.

A single glance showed him that this time the quiet sojourn in the gloomy apartment, instead of exerting an elevating and brightening influence, had had a depressing and saddening effect upon the already clouded spirit of his imperial penitent.  In spite of the most zealous effort, he had not succeeded in finding his way into the soul-life of this sovereign, equally great in intellect and energy, but neither frank nor truthful, yet, on the other hand, his penetration often succeeded in fathoming the causes of the Emperor’s moods.