She probably remembered her lover's refusal, and that she only needed
to allude to it to release herself from the wailing old woman, but an
invisible power sealed her lips. She was filled with an ardent desire to
help, to avert this unutterable misery, to bring aid to this child,
devoted to destruction.

To rise above everything petty, and with the imperial motto "More,
farther," before her eyes, to attain a lofty height from which to look
down upon others and show her own generosity to them, had been the
longing of her life. She was still permitted to feel herself the object
of the love of the mightiest sovereign on earth, and should she be denied
performing, by her own power, an act of deliverance to which heart and
mind urged her?

No, and again no!

She was no longer poor Wawerl!

She could and would show this, for, like an illumination, words which she
had heard the day before in the Golden Cross had flashed into her memory.

Master Wenzel Jamnitzer, the famous Nuremberg goldsmith, had addressed
them to her in the imperial apartments, where he had listened to her
singing the day before.

He had come to consult with the Emperor Charles about the diadems which
he wished to give his two nieces, the daughters of Ferdinand, King
of the Romans, who were to be married in July in Ratisbon. Their
manufacture had been intrusted to Master Jamnitzer, and after the concert