'Will you go and leave me to myself, Forstner, you insufferable ass!' The words broke forth half fiercely, half humorously.

Forstner drew himself up with a certain stiff dignity. 'Were that term applied to me by any but my Prince, I should answer with the sword,' he said.

The Duke laughed impatiently. 'I retract—I apologise—I beg your forgiveness; you are an excellent fellow, a dear friend—only for God's sake, man, go away!'

'But your Highness—I beg you to consider——' the other began.

'Look here, Forstner,' the Duke interrupted, 'if you don't go—now, at once, and leave me alone, upon my soul I will run you through!' He half-drew his sword.

'Really, Monseigneur,' replied Forstner, 'I am ready to obey your Highness, but——'

'Well, then, go!' The Duke was getting beyond himself; each moment he feared Wilhelmine would appear, and Forstner was not a person he desired as witness either to his meeting with his beloved, or to her advent from the lowest part of the town.

The estimable Forstner had at length commenced his departure, but he was distant only a few paces when the Duke heard a laugh coming from the gloom of the shadowed Judengasse. It was a laugh which, though low-pitched and quiet, had a resonant distinctness which caused it to carry a long way.

'Wait, for Heaven's sake, till he is gone,' his Highness whispered over his shoulder into the darkness, observing to his dismay that Forstner had halted.

'Did your Highness call me?' asked the too-devoted friend, and made as though to return.

'No; I coughed. Do go away!' shouted the Duke in return, and set himself to cough vigorously, for behind him from the darkened street there came the unmistakable sound of Wilhelmine's irrepressible laughter.

At length the angular figure vanished, and the Duke sprang round with arms outstretched, and into them he received the stately form of his mistress, who lay upon his breast; for once unresponsive to his passionate kisses, while she laughed in a very agony of mirth.

'Forgive me, Monseigneur,' she said at last, her voice still shaking with laughter; 'but you know the scene was really beyond me. I heard all, and oh! Forstner was so droll, and you too.' She began to laugh again. 'Oh, how delightfully undignified, mon Prince—when you coughed to hide my laughter.'

Once more she leaned against Eberhard Ludwig's shoulder and rocked with merriment. The Duke also laughed, but a trifle ruefully; that meddler Forstner had destroyed the rapture of his meeting with Wilhelmine, had broken the charm of his pensive mood; and besides, the Duke knew from experience that when Wilhelmine began to laugh like that he would probably hear no serious word from her during the evening. Even in their passion's transports he had known his mistress suddenly go off into a series of 'fous rires,' and no man enjoys the most harmless laughter at such moments.

'Wilhelmine, for God's sake stop laughing, and tell me where you have been since the Duchess—since the Duchess——' he hesitated, not knowing how to express the summary ejection from the castle.

'Since her Highness had the goodness to turn me out.' Wilhelmine was serious now, though her lips still twitched with mirth, and her eyes were mischievous and teasing. 'Nay, your Highness, that is my secret. I have always a hiding-place whither I can vanish when you are not good to me. Shall I disappear again? I have but to say a mystic word and your Highness will clasp empty air.' She was play-acting, as she often did, and she looked up at him with such dazzling eyes that he caught her to him with masterful passion.

'Witch! enchantress!' he murmured. 'What matters it where you were; you are here now with me, and never to part again!'

'Till death us do part,' she answered. 'Nay, those are the words men say to their wives, not to their——' A note of bitterness pierced the mockery of her tone.

'Ah! heart of mine,' he broke in vehemently, 'would that I could make you Duchess! You are my wife by all laws of fairest nature and love! This is a more holy thing than marriage—nay, this is true marriage!' It was the eternal lie of lovers: the old futile, pathetic, impossible pleading of those whose love cannot be sanctioned by law. Wilhelmine's face darkened.

'Monseigneur, if you could make Forstner and his sort believe that, I should not be taunted and insulted. But come, now, we cannot discuss this here. Will you tell me where you propose to lodge me this night, or shall I vanish again?' Her gaiety had returned.

'I must ask you to accept the hospitality of my roof to-night,' he said gravely; 'to-morrow I will seek a fitting abode for you.'

'Ah! a mistress's separate establishment.' Her voice was bitter again. Was there ever such a difficult woman for lover to deal with? But that was half her charm.

'Wilhelmine, do not torture me. I will do all I can, and I pray you, never call your house a mistress's establishment—call it rather the palace of my heart's queen.'

'Prettily put, and meaning exactly the same!'

She was laughing once more; she loved when Eberhard Ludwig spoke in this chivalrous tone, as every woman does, thinking it a tribute to her own especial dignity when it is often only a deft trick of speech. Laughing and talking and teasing her beloved, she allowed him to lead her away through the gardens.

Within the castle commotion prevailed. Serving-men and maids ran hither and thither in an excited and aimless fashion; they started back in surprise and dismay when they perceived Wilhelmine's tall figure beside the Duke, but neither his Highness nor the lady stopped to question the servants on the cause of the disturbance. When they reached the first floor, where dwelt the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha, and would have passed on to gain Wilhelmine's apartments, they found themselves confronted by a group of persons talking in excited whispers. Prelate Osiander, certainly not one whom Eberhard Ludwig desired as a witness to Wilhelmine's re-entry; Madame de Stafforth, the Countess Gemmingen, one of the Duchess's ladies; Dr. Muerger, second court physician; two of her Highness's waiting-women. Madame de Ruth was also there, and it struck Wilhelmine as ominous that the lady of many words and ready wit stood silent and constrained.

'What is this?' queried Eberhard Ludwig angrily in a loud tone. The assembled persons turned in startled surprise. Osiander came forward.

'Your Highness's wife, the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha, is sick unto death, and your Highness was not to be found for all our search,' he said sternly, and without deigning to cast a glance upon Wilhelmine.

'What ails the Duchess?' asked Eberhard Ludwig, turning to Dr. Muerger.

'It would seem to be a stroke of blood to the brain, your Highness—a dangerous thing to one of the Duchess's robust physique. Dr. Schubart is occupied in bleeding her Highness. My assistance was dispensed with,' he added in an offended tone.

At this moment the door of the Duchess's chamber opened, and Monsieur le Docteur Schubart, first doctor to the court and a very pompous person, appeared.

'I am relieved to be able to declare her Highness the Duchess to be returned from her strange swoon. I have the honour to announce that her Highness's cherished life will be spared to her devoted subjects.'

The man was odiously unctuous and self-satisfied. Madame de Stafforth burst into weak weeping, while Osiander gravely offered his congratulations to Eberhard Ludwig upon the recovery of 'his noble and devoted wife.' There lay something of true dignity and sober goodness in the Prelate's whole being which never failed to impress Wilhelmine, and she felt his entire ignoring of her to be a heavy public reproof from a competent judge. There was a moment's awkward silence when the Prelate ceased speaking, and every eye was turned to the pair of handsome lovers as they stood side by side, framed in the oaken panelling of the doorway leading to the stairs. Madame de Ruth, who hated pauses, came forward and held out her hand to Wilhelmine.

'My dear, I am glad to see you,' she said kindly.

Wilhelmine, whom Osiander's disapproval had irritated, replied calmly: 'Yes, I have returned, and to stay this time!' It was said defiantly.

Now it is well known that love makes the wisest of mankind foolish, and that the poet in love is a perfectly unaccountable being. Eberhard Ludwig was poet and lover, and he lost his head on this occasion.

'Returned to stay, dear lady, as long as my poor court can harbour and amuse so fair a visitant!' he said; then, turning to Madame de Ruth, he added in a lower tone, which was yet perfectly audible to most of the assembled company: 'The rain-cloud brought back sunshine to us. A flash of lightning carried her from Elysium to earth once more. A mysterious Black Cupid led her to me! but we must be very careful, for she can vanish at will, this beautiful enchantress.'

It was said in extravagant homage, half in pleasantry, but several of those present, and notably the Duchess's waiting-women, heard the unwise words. When Wilhelmine swept past them on her way to her chamber they drew back in superstitious awe, and she heard them murmur, 'Witch and sorceress! we must not offend her.'



CHAPTER X

THE ATTACK IN THE GROTTO

THE court of Stuttgart soon saw to its cost that Wilhelmine had of a truth 'come to stay this time,' as she herself had announced on the evening of her return from the Judengasse. After a few days spent in her old quarters in the castle, she removed to a hastily improvised abode on the first floor of the Duke's Jaegerhaus. Here had been the official residence of his Highness's Grand Maitre de la Meute, and this personage, who was relegated to a small and inconvenient dwelling-place, naturally resented his eviction. Public disapproval was excited by the summary commandeering of a well-known official residence; and when, following upon their keeper's ejection, the stag-hounds and hare-coursers were removed from the Jaegerhaus, the Stuttgarters murmured ominously. It had long been a highly prized privilege of the townsfolk to repair, each Sunday and Feast-day, to view the hounds—in fact, this custom had become one of their social entertainments. The burghers and their families were wont to meet together in the stretch of garden which bordered the open rails of the enclosure, where the hounds took their afternoon airing on idle, non-hunting days. The citizens loved to watch the dogs' antics, and regarded it as their recognised Sunday afternoon amusement. In the Graben, or disused town moat, turned road, stood the Jaegerhaus—a long, barn-like building, the entire ground-floor whereof was occupied by the dog-kennels, which opened to the back on paddocks. On the first floor were many spacious apartments, hitherto used for the administration of the affairs of his Highness's hunt, and for lodging the Jaegermasters of distant posts in the forests, who came to Stuttgart on official business; and here, too, was the residence of the Grand Master of the Hunt and hounds. On the third floor, beneath the high sloping roof, were a few garrets and several large lofts filled with the straw destined for the dog-kennels. The mingled odours of hounds and straw displeased Wilhelmine's acute sense of smell, and one of her first commands upon entering her new abode was that hounds and straw should be removed instantly. She declared that therefrom the whole house was infested with fleas, and when the Duke, wishful to propitiate the angry lady, proposed to send for the late occupant of the Jaegerhaus to inquire if he had been aware of his neighbours, the fleas, she remarked angrily that fleas were dainty feeders and, like Jews, were not in the habit of selecting pigskin for food. This remark was evidently heard by some unfriendly person, for on the morrow it was the common talk of the town. A few days later the hounds were seen progressing through Stuttgart on their way to temporary kennels hastily arranged in the Rothwald. The populace followed this cortege shouting, 'They are taking away our beautiful hounds, and leaving an accursed bitch in the old kennels!' And that day when Serenissimus drove out, accompanied as usual by Wilhelmine, he was met by an angry murmuring crowd. Here was the beginning of that unpopularity of Wilhelmine's which gave the lie to the devotion of her friends, and notably her personal attendants and servants. This unpopularity which had so terrible an effect on her character, hardening her heart, accentuating the underlying cruelty, the indifference to aught save her own pleasure and power. Feeling herself accounted evil, she became so. It was this, taken together with her magnificent success and her extraordinary prosperity, which caused her to become a cruel and self-seeking woman. Monsieur Gabriel, in the far-off days at Guestrow, had feared this development, had trembled before the world-hardness which would mar the being he loved. How many have trembled at the same thought, and in sadness and loneliness have realised that their dread has become a cruel reality! We can face Death for those we love, mourning them in agony and tears, but we can find no beauty in that bitter and hideous grief which comes to us when those we loved, we trusted, we admired, change to us—worst of all, change in themselves. This is the inexorable Death in Life, and in this Death we cannot dream of a fair consoling Hereafter. The thing we loved has not only perished—alas! we realise that it has never existed! What we worshipped was the shadow of our own making, a mirage conjured up by our heart's desire. To those who love most, love best, this tragedy comes.

Wilhelmine, who arrived in Wirtemberg a strong, passionate creature, generous, vital, was too responsive to remain unaltered by the alchemising touch of the world. Had she been met with tenderness and purity, and by noble men and women, she might have become a power for good; as it was, she was received by intrigue, contending interests, disapproval, distrust, the lust of love. As a good woman there was no place for her at Wirtemberg's court, so all the evil, lying dormant in every human heart, rose up in her, and she became a Queen of Wickedness. Monsieur Gabriel would have mourned another lost illusion, had not Death taken him from this world a few months after Wilhelmine's departure from Guestrow. He bequeathed to her his well-worn books, Les Pensees de Pascal, Le Roman de la Rose, the poems of the singers of La Pleiade, and the few other volumes wherefrom he had instructed his beloved pupil. He left, besides, a little sealed packet, in which she was surprised to find several beautiful jewels, among them a white enamel cross, in the centre whereof was the image of a dove with outspread wings.

Eberhard Ludwig told her these were the insignia of a high order in France, and she was thereby confirmed in her notion that her beloved old schoolmaster's great air and immense refinement were those of a grand seigneur. She often pondered on why a Huguenot had been permitted to bear the holy order of the St. Esprit upon his breast, but she remembered that Monsieur Gabriel had spoken of the court festivities with that sure accent which told that he had been of the caste which took part in those scenes. She never learnt his secret; to her credit, she never sought to unravel it. The Graevenitz was what the world calls wicked, but vulgarity and vulgarity's attendant, curiosity, could not touch her, and she respected the silence of her friends, though she ever spied upon her enemies. The news of Monsieur Gabriel's death was brought to Wilhelmine soon after her advent at the Jaegerhaus, and for many days the favourite refused to see any one save Eberhard Ludwig. She mourned her old friend sincerely, and wept bitterly when she saw the worn volumes he had bequeathed to her. The cross she fastened round her neck on a thin gold chain, and this badge of a sacred order rested for many years on the heart of the strange, evil woman. You can see the tiny line of this chain in the few known portraits of Wilhelmine von Graevenitz. These pictures are very rare, Time and Hatred have hidden them but too well. Indeed, it is as though all the Swabian virtue had conspired together to obliterate the memory, with the portraits, of the abhorred 'Graevenitzin.'

For the nonce, life was very peaceful for Wilhelmine in the Jaegerhaus; and the Duke, entirely enthralled by his mistress, humoured her every whim. Madame de Ruth said mockingly to Zollern that a more exemplary young married couple than 'Monsieur et Madame Eberhard Ludwig' she had never seen. But the feeling against the favourite in Stuttgart grew each day, and the fact that his Highness had caused much that was of beauty and value in the castle to be removed to the Jaegerhaus gave umbrage to the courtiers. Even Zollern remonstrated, but in vain. Meanwhile the Jaegerhaus had become a splendid abode: rich yellow silken hangings hid the bare whitewashed walls of the chamber Wilhelmine had selected for her reception-room; the old wooden floors had been polished till they appeared to be the finest parquet; gilt chairs deeply cushioned, and also of that delicate yellow colour which the favourite loved, had been brought from Paris; a spinet with a beautifully painted case stood near the window; a quaint sixteenth-century stove which had been in the state room at the castle had been chosen by her as harmonising well with the yellow hangings, being made of light blue tiles. In an alcove, especially constructed by grumbling, slow-handed Stuttgart workmen for the 'Duke's Witch,' was the pick of the ducal library. The court ladies heard with jealous rage, that the Graevenitzin had a dressing-room entirely panelled with mirrors, that her bed was hung with light blue silk, that she had a silver bath surrounded by mirror screens. How had the Mecklemburg Fraeulein learnt such things? they asked. How indeed, but in her inborn genius for luxury! The favourite's servants were magnificently attired in ducal liveries. The lady had her own carriage with painted panels and yellow satin cushions. She gave rich entertainments, and the invitations were coveted, of course, by the good people who were so horrified at their hostess. The Duchess Johanna Elizabetha would not be present at a court feast where the Graevenitz appeared? Very well! there were no court feasts! All the gaiety of the autumn of 1706 and the winter of 1707 took place at the Jaegerhaus.

The Duchess-mother, from her dower-house of Stetten, descended periodically upon Stuttgart, rated her son, condoled with Johanna Elizabetha, and returned utterly unsuccessful to Stetten.

Forstner's warning voice was never silent. Osiander failed to return Wilhelmine's salutation when she encountered him in the Lustgarten. It was open war between virtue and the Graevenitz.

Stuttgart in the winter is a vastly different place to the smiling, gay Stuttgart of spring and summer days, and Wilhelmine often wondered whither had vanished the charm, the delight of Southern Germany. That winter there fell but little snow, a cruel black frost was over the whole valley; sometimes the frost relaxed his iron grip, and then came torrents of rain. The frost returned when the rain ceased, and taking the wet earth into his gaunt hands turned everything into dirty sheet ice. In Wilhelmine's yellow room at the Jaegerhaus the blue stove radiated a pleasant warmth, and, if a feeble sunray struggled through the gloomy, leaden sky, the yellow hangings caught it like a lover, and seemed to treasure it, filling the whole room with a hint of spring sunshine. In the castle the Duchess sat in her sombre apartments which she had made as dull, as dreary, as charmless as herself. Eberhard Ludwig seldom visited her, and she spent her time in cosseting the sickly Erbprinz, or bemoaning her fate to Madame de Stafforth.

Slowly the winter left the land, but the spring that year was a meagre starveling, niggardly of smiles. He seemed to have borrowed winter's breath, and the pale young leaves shuddered in the unfriendly blasts. The fruit blossom struggled into a nipped existence, and fell like thin snow to the ground. An eerie spring, and men said there was a spell upon the country, and looked towards the Jaegerhaus as they spoke.

During the winter the French army under Marechal Villars had again threatened Wirtemberg. On a cheerless day towards the end of April Eberhard Ludwig arrived as usual in the early morning to visit his beloved at the Jaegerhaus. For several days she had noticed a cloud upon his brow, he had answered her absently, and she knew instinctively that there was something on his mind, which he desired to tell her. Too wise to question him, she watched him closely. When he entered the yellow-hung salon that cheerless April morning, he greeted her almost coldly, and began to play roughly with his huge black wolf-hound, Melac. This animal was the Duke's constant companion—an extraordinarily sagacious beast, whom Wilhelmine declared to be a hater of dullness because he had ever been surly towards Johanna Elizabetha. For the favourite the dog had a marked affection; he would lie near her with his large head resting on her foot, while his patient eyes looked up at her with that strange, unblinking gaze which is characteristic of the wolf-hound.

There was something brutal in the way Eberhard Ludwig teased the dog that morning; he hurt the poor brute, pulling his short, sensitive ears, drawing Melac roughly back then flinging him away. It was a cruel game, more like a combat between man and hound; and Melac, good, generous beast though he was, began to get angry. The Duke's hand had been scratched by the dog's sharp teeth, and the wolf-hound tasting blood, grew ferocious. With a growl Melac suddenly reared up on his hind legs and placed his front paws on the Duke's breast, his teeth bared in an ugly snarl. Eberhard Ludwig laughed, but the dog's fangs were dangerously near his Highness's throat; and indeed it was no laughing matter, for a wolf-hound, once his teeth are fastened in a man's throat, does not leave his prey alive. It was a grim comedy. Wilhelmine rose from her chair near the window and came forward.

'Leave him to me!' shouted the Duke, at length aware of his danger. He gripped Melac by the ears and held the beast from him; but the hound was thoroughly aroused, and Eberhard Ludwig felt that it was an unequal contest in spite of his strength.

Wilhelmine advanced fearlessly, and laying her hand upon the dog's head, she leaned round till she faced the snarling brute.

'What are you doing, Wilhelmine?' panted the Duke. 'For God's sake do not put your face so close to his teeth!'

'I know what I am doing, mon Prince,' she said calmly.

As at Guestrow, when Mueller had attacked her, she now narrowed her lids and forced her will into her eyes. Gradually she felt her mastery working on Melac; his jaws dropped, no longer fiercely baring the teeth but as though he had run a long distance, the whole mouth became weak, the red tongue protruding. With a whine the dog fell, his front paws slipping from the Duke's shoulders. Shuddering, the great animal crouched on the floor, his eyes still resting on Wilhelmine with an expression of abject terror.

'Lie quiet, Melac! There—good dog!' She stroked his head, and the hound fawned upon her, dragging himself round her feet, crawling, abased.

Eberhard Ludwig caught her hand, and his own trembled a little. 'What an extraordinary thing! Did you put a spell upon Melac? I have never seen him thus cowed! Beloved, I believe I owe my life to you this morning,' he said.

Wilhelmine passed her hand across her eyes. 'So may all your enemies be defeated!' she said, laughing.

'Could you make me tremble like that with your wonderful eyes?' he asked. He was fascinated, yet there was something terrible to him in this woman's power.

'Mon Prince, you are my master always,' she returned; and the subtle flattery of being the avowed ruler of so potent a being delighted him, as it pleases all men, who are obviously slaves, to be called master by the woman who controls them.

'Alas! but I am not the master of destiny,' he said sadly, 'and I come this morning to prove it. Wilhelmine, beloved, I must return to the army. We have information that Villars is to invade Wirtemberg once more, and I must be with the forces.'

'Is our happiness over then?' she queried.

'Ah! no, no, beloved of my life! You will wait for me here, I shall return in a few months.'

'Months! Months of Stuttgart without you? Ah! Eberhard, you cannot ask it!' She pleaded long, but for once the Duke was obdurate: he must go, he said; honour demanded it.

On the day fixed for Eberhard Ludwig's departure there was much stir in Stuttgart, and the people crowded the streets to show honour to their Duke, whose popularity was suddenly reawakened by his reassumption of the role of military hero. Johanna Elizabetha was to accompany the Duke out of the town; once again she was to be permitted to play her part as wife and Duchess. Forstner had achieved this, with the help of Osiander, who was to pronounce a blessing on the Duke and his body-guard on the market-place ere they set forth. The Prelate declared he would refuse his benediction were the Duchess not accorded her fitting place in the ceremony. Wilhelmine was enraged. It is hard for a woman to see another recognised as the beloved's wife, besides she regarded this as a slight to herself. It was terrible to her, and she stormed and raged and reproached the Duke, demanding what was to be her place in the ceremony. Then, in tears, she caressed him.

Of course, the Duke blamed Johanna Elizabetha for this scene. When do we ever blame the right person for the disagreeable happenings of our lives?

At length Serenissimus tore himself away from his mistress, carrying in his heart her picture in her yellow, sunlit room, crying bitterly with face hidden in her hands. He hated tears, but Wilhelmine's weeping was so different from that of other women, he reflected, as he wended his way through the gardens towards the castle to mount his charger and head the procession to the market-place, and thence away to the French frontier. He had taken leave of Johanna Elizabetha that morning, for though she was to assist in the ceremony of departure, he had granted her request for a previous farewell in private. The Duchess had met him with tear-swollen lids, and had wept incessantly during the short interview. The poor soul had shown her grief in a most unbecoming way; her mouth grimaced ridiculously when she cried, 'like a squalling brat's,' his Highness had reflected bitterly.

Ah! the difference when Wilhelmine wept—her head bowed down with sadness, her face hidden. It was so graceful, so poetic; of course the secret was, that when she wept she hid her face. A really clever woman of the world would never show the grimace of sorrow: she may weep, but she hides her face, well knowing that a weeping woman is a hideous sight; but all this Eberhard Ludwig did not know.

Meanwhile Wilhelmine sat in her yellow salon listening to the sounds from the market-place which floated to her across the gardens behind the Jaegerhaus. She heard the flare of trumpets which greeted the Duke, the roar of the enthusiastic people acclaiming their warlike sovereign; then followed silence, Osiander must be pronouncing his benediction, she thought. Again a flourish of trumpets, men shouting, and then she heard the grand hymn, 'Ein' Feste Burg ist unser Gott,' sung by thousands of voices and brayed out by the brass instruments. The sound came nearer: she could hear the tramp of feet, the clatter of horses, the cries of the people. The musicians played a march: it seemed to Wilhelmine that it became more triumphant, more blatant, as the cortege passed near the Jaegerhaus; yet the boisterous military music held a note of pathos, something infinitely moving at this terrible farewell hour, and the listening woman wept bitterly, and, God knows! she forgot to hide her sorrow-distorted mouth at that moment.

* * * * *

The days dragged on. May came cold and unfriendly, as April had been, and Wilhelmine thought that all the warmth of the world must have departed when Eberhard Ludwig went to the frontier to do battle. The lilacs came to a tardy bloom, and even on the cold ungenial air there floated a divine fragrance. News came from the Duke—dull news, all detail of the organising and improvement of troops. Passionate words intermingled in these letters to Wilhelmine, old faded yellow curiosities now. Madame de Ruth, Zollern, and Stafforth often visited the favourite at the Jaegerhaus, and Wilhelmine's innate desire to please—that impulse which must ever belong to the 'charmeurs' and especially to the 'charmeuses' of the world—taught her to forget her sadness when she was with her friends, and thus some brighter hours were passed. She sang, and if her singing were more truthfully passionate and more sad than of yore, it was surely love which had taught her greater depth. Only Madame de Ruth, the old courtesan, realised that not love but love's sadness had given that tone to the glorious voice; and Madame de Ruth looked at Zollern, her eyes full of tears, but Zollern leaned his chin on the mythologically ornamented china handle of his stick and revelled in a thrill, a spark of youth's desire, which the younger woman's voice had rekindled. Men are promiscuous to the end of their lives. Why blame them? God made them so.

Towards the beginning of May, shortly after his Highness's departure, Madame de Ruth arrived one morning at the Jaegerhaus brimming over with words and gossip. 'Imagine, ma chere,' she cried, as she rustled into Wilhelmine's yellow salon, 'Osiander is in disgrace with the Duchess! I heard it was coming, but did not believe it. As you know, her Highness has given orders that, being in spiritual mourning in the absence of her dear spouse at the war, she will see none save her personal attendants and Madame de Stafforth. Well, well, it is quite contrary to every etiquette; but, indeed, the court of Stuttgart has ceased to exist nowadays, and her Highness can do as she likes.'

'Yes, yes; I know all that. Tell me what the news is!' broke in Wilhelmine impatiently. The Duchess's entire seclusion was well known to her, she heard it discussed by her friends daily.

'Let me tell you my story in my own way, or I shall not tell it at all! Well, I live in the castle.'—'I know that too,' said Wilhelmine, laughing.—'Certainly you do—I live in the castle, and really it is ridiculous if I never see the Duchess, considering that I am her resident Maitresse du Palais; so at last I wrote to the Duchess saying I begged an audience, as really being of no use to her Highness I wished for leave of absence, but must crave a moment's conversation with her before I left.'

'Are you going to leave?' said Wilhelmine anxiously.

'Jamais de la vie, ma chere! but I wanted to see the Duchess, and this was the only way. Well, she consented to see me, so I went to her yesterday evening, found her with la Stafforth sewing shirts for the poor—very estimable! She was far from amiable to me; asked me if I meant to cease being Maitresse du Palais, and become Dame de Deshonneur to Fraeulein von Graevenitz. Upon my word, I had not credited her with wit enough for so cutting a saying; then I told her I should be obliged to resign, and had written to Serenissimus saying her Highness's refusals to see me made my position ridiculous. She replied that I could do as I wished, and just as I was preparing to take leave of her Highness, Osiander was announced. It amused me to hear, so I drew back into the shadow—you know the Duchess's rooms have always much shadow. Well, Osiander declared he had given his best attention to her Highness's demand, but regretted to be unable to accede to her request. The Duchess seemed much annoyed, and said that in this case she would invite the Pietist to preach to her in the castle itself. Osiander told her that this, of course, was as her Highness willed, but that Pietists being members of a sect not recognised by the State, he could not permit a sermon to be preached in the Duke's chapel or in the Stiftskirche by a travelling Pietist preacher. The Duchess bowed to him in dismissal, and remarked that this Mueller was a saint she had heard, and inspired by God——'

'Mueller?' cried Wilhelmine—'Mueller? a preacher? Where does he come from?'

'My dear, that is just the strange thing. Of course, directly Osiander departed, I made my courtesy to her Highness—she didn't try to keep me, you may be sure!—and I hurried after the Prelate. I found him on the stairs in great distress, poor man, for it appears her Highness has tried to have some of these Pietists to preach in church before. She is filled with curiosity, which she calls sympathy with the simple, stern religion; and this Mueller, who goes about preaching, is now at Tuebingen. La Stafforth heard about him from some servant, and has filled her Highness's head with foolish notions, amongst others, that he is sent by God to console her!

'It appears, my dear, and this is the disagreeable part, that he preaches directly against you—naming you by name, and saying you are a walking contamination; that you are a witch, and that in Mecklemburg it was well known! He can vouch for it, as he was pastor at Guestrow before God called him—which means before he became a wandering Pietist preacher. All this Osiander told me, and, to do him justice, he was horrified at the whole thing and very angry with her Highness. I suppose Mueller is a madman, a fanatic; but, Wilhelmine, I think we had best journey to the Neuhaus together and stay there till the Duke's return, for I do not trust the people here. There is a strong feeling against you, and if they are to be stirred up by this preaching rascal, it might really be disagreeable.' She paused breathless.

'He is a terrible man, a devil, and I am convinced he has followed me to Wirtemberg for revenge,' said Wilhelmine; and then she told Madame de Ruth of Mueller's behaviour at Guestrow, and of how she had interrupted his sermon. Madame de Ruth laughed, though she was anxious and distressed that this dangerous enemy was working against Wilhelmine in the Duke's absence, especially when she heard that Mueller was a powerful preacher gifted with the fanatic's vivid eloquence.

'One thing perplexes me,' said the Graevenitz, 'why does Osiander oppose this man? Surely to harm me any means would be welcome!'

'Yes, doubtless!' replied Madame de Ruth, 'but of the two evils in the land he considers you the lesser; for you, my dear, are frankly of the devil, and the Church can abhor you, but Pietism is a wolf in sheep's clothing which might eat up the Church! All these Churchmen fear that the Pietists should get hold of the people—above all, in this case, of the Duchess and her tiresome court. It is simply, as usual, one faction against the other. Though, of course, Osiander as a gentleman and a scholar is naturally opposed to ranting preachers and religion vulgarised.'

It was settled that Madame de Ruth and Wilhelmine were to start for the Neuhaus as soon as fitting arrangements could be made, and the Graevenitz looked forward with pleasure to the quiet summer hours she would spend reading beneath the beech-trees of the Neuhaus garden. But Fate was too strong for her; the very morning fixed for their departure Madame de Ruth slipped upon the castle staircase and broke her ankle.

Wilhelmine was informed of the accident by Zollern, who was both distressed for the sake of his old friend's pain, and much disturbed that the projected departure could not take place, for he did not consider Wilhelmine safe in Stuttgart. He knew that the feeling against her increased each day, owing chiefly to the gossip concerning her witch practices. It was her habit to read late at night, and the people believed she was occupied in brewing magic philters and composing incantations. They vowed they had seen two shadows on her window-blinds, which of a truth they may have seen, for often old Frau Hazzim came to visit her secretly at night. The Jewess was entirely under the spell of Wilhelmine's attraction, and the Graevenitz was learning many things from her nocturnal visitor, who had a vast knowledge of herbs and medicaments, the traditional code of doctoring handed down in her family. Strict Jewess though she was, she had many receipts for love potions, and she knew much of various poisons. Thus the Stuttgarters were not mistaken when they averred they had seen a second shadow on the blind, and considering Frau Hazzim's grotesque features, it is hardly surprising that the superstitious and fearful observers believed that this second shadow was the witch's familiar spirit.

Wilhelmine's servants were questioned at the market, and they replied that their mistress received no visitors in the dead of night, for Wilhelmine was naturally careful that even her servants should not be aware of Frau Hazzim's visits, which, considering the ill fame of the Jews in those days, was absolutely necessary. She therefore was wont herself to admit her visitor by a small door which opened on to the garden at the back of the Jaegerhaus. So the terrified, fascinated watchers saw, with horror, this mysterious second shadow on the closed blind, and it was said that by incantations the witch summoned this evil being, for her own servants must know had any person from the mortal world been in the house!

Of this story Zollern was not aware, but he knew enough to recognise the dangerous reputation which his friend enjoyed. Wilhelmine herself was perfectly conscious that there was an element of danger for her, and she was disturbed that by Madame de Ruth's untoward accident she was obliged to remain in Stuttgart. That she was a reputed witch she knew, but far from being alarmed she was slightly flattered and amused at the notion, and deeming herself secure in the Duke's powerful protection she had no fear of any serious annoyance. Her only apprehension was that some murderous attack might be made upon her when she drove out, so she remained more than ever secluded and hidden in the Jaegerhaus and the walled-in Lustgarten, her one amusement being Frau Hazzim's nightly visits.

Wilhelmine was half dupe of her own magical practices, and she was arduous in her studies of old black-letter books on the subject of spirit-raising, love potions, spells, and the rest of those meddlings with the unknown forces which have fascinated mankind for countless ages under various forms.

Towards the end of May the weather changed, and sultry heat reigned over Wirtemberg. Stuttgart lies deep in a valley, sheltered by hills, and the heat in the town is often terrible. The sudden change from the chill spring to glowing summer was unbearable to Wilhelmine, immured in the Jaegerhaus, and she longed for the cool freshness of the Rothwald where she had been accustomed to drive, but Zollern so strongly advised her not to show herself in the town, that she consented to forego this pleasure while Mueller was in Stuttgart. He had preached before the Duchess, upon whom his passionate eloquence, the Biblical turn of his phrases, and his denunciations of all things joyful, had made a deep and pleasing impression. She caused the Pietist to visit her daily and instruct her in the stern belief. Mueller told her Highness the story of his conversion: how he had been a worldly, but he hoped a pure, pastor of the State religion; how that an evil and lustful woman had sought to seduce him, and he mentioned Guestrow as the place where his temptation had been offered him. The stroke told: her Highness started visibly. He continued by indicating that this abandoned woman was a witch, and finally let the Duchess understand that, having triumphantly resisted the temptress's sinful wiles, he had sought and found strength in the Pietist movement. Even a slower intellect than that of Johanna Elizabetha could not have failed to associate Wilhelmine von Graevenitz with the temptress of Guestrow; and when in answer to her Highness's query, whether the evil woman had been punished for her wickedness, Mueller threw himself at the Duchess's feet and told her openly that the contaminating female was the Graevenitz, whom he had followed from Guestrow—he, the poor instrument of God's righteous wrath, her Highness indeed felt that here was the vengeance of the Almighty coming upon her enemy. Mueller was sincere enough in his abhorrence of the woman who had resisted and then insulted him. The fanatical practices of the Pietists had inflamed his mind, and he really believed God had chosen him to humble the wanton. Old Frau von Graevenitz had talked freely of the favours and honours showered upon her daughter at Stuttgart, and Mueller's mad physical jealousy was aroused, for he at once realised that Wilhelmine had become Eberhard Ludwig's mistress. This, together with his fierce fanatical Pietism, had sufficed to turn the man's brain. Thus mixed and contending motives, as is so often the case, formed a fixed and single purpose, and Mueller had preached his way to Stuttgart, where he meant to accomplish his object of vengeance upon Wilhelmine or die in the attempt. He knew that to gain an extensive hearing from the crowd in Stuttgart he must earn a reputation as preacher in the neighbourhood, so he began his campaign by lecturing in the open air at many towns and villages of Wirtemberg. Pietism was rife all over the country, and the preacher was received with enthusiasm, and his fame, as we have seen, spread rapidly, even reaching at length the Duchess. Mueller had never dreamed of gaining so great a personage as her Highness, and he was astounded when he received her command to preach at the castle; but this gave him renewed confidence in himself, and it seemed to his half-crazy mind to be a confirmation of his divine mission of revenge on the sinful. At present he had formed no definite plan as to how his vengeance was to be accomplished; he merely meant, if possible, to inflame public opinion against Wilhelmine to such an extent as to cause her to be driven from Wirtemberg. With unfailing energy Mueller preached sometimes four or five sermons daily, whenever and wherever he managed to attract a crowd. At first he contented himself with pronouncing violent diatribes against sin: the term conveyed to him only one species of human weakness, and all his sermons were on the subject of bodily lust. He had named Wilhelmine 'a sinner, an instigator of wickedness,' at Tuebingen, and he had quickly noted the approval on his hearers' faces. Now in Stuttgart he went further, and actually accused her of witchcraft as well. His zeal grew, each day increased by his own words, till he preached openly a religious crusade against her. Osiander, informed of these sayings, caused him to be warned that the Church could not countenance a religious preacher who thus instigated the people to revolutionary acts. The better sort of Pietists—sober burghers, for the most part—deserted their idol, and his congregations were now chiefly composed of the worst characters of the town. It certainly was unfortunate that the Graevenitz had been unable to seek the shelter of Neuhaus, yet Zollern and Stafforth reflected there could be little actual danger if she remained at the Jaegerhaus, only taking the air in the walled-in Lustgarten; but they urged her not to venture out of this shelter for a few weeks, after the expiration of which time they argued the popular excitement would have died out, or if it had not, they would make arrangements for her residence in some safe place across the frontier of Switzerland. Neuhaus they considered to be too near to Tuebingen, where, they heard, there was much hostility against Wilhelmine.

Meanwhile each day the heat became more intense, and the Favourite grew more impatient of being forbidden to drive out. One evening, as she sat disconsolately in her salon, a faint, fresh breeze floated in through the open window. It was fragrant and delightful after the long, stifling hours, and it seemed to her like an invitation from the outer world, that world of tree and flower for which she yearned. How she longed to drive away out of the reeking, low-lying town, and wander in the cool Red Wood! Still the Lustgarten was a resource, and its quaint sixteenth- and seventeenth-century embellishments delighted her. She rose, and taking a lace mantilla, arranged it round her head. She passed out of the small door at the back of the Jaegerhaus, and strolled slowly along in the direction of the grotto. As she passed the gates leading from the garden to the high-road, she called to the sentry, telling him that should Monseigneur de Zollern seek her before she returned, he should be informed that she had gone to the Duke Christopher's Grotto. At first the soldier pretended not to hear, and the Graevenitz was obliged to approach him and give her message.

She asked, angrily, if he was deaf, and was informed in the usual peasant idiom that he 'could hear as well as another.'

'Well, give my message to any one who inquires for me,' she said haughtily, and walked on.

The man frowned evilly at her, and she recollected that the maid Maria, once when she had accompanied her mistress on a stroll in the Lustgarten, and they had passed the same sentry, had told her that he was the lover of Johanna Elizabetha's waiting-maid, the woman who had always been so insolent to Wilhelmine at the castle. 'He would do me harm, that lout, if he could,' Wilhelmine reflected as she walked on, and the man's frowning face haunted her for a time, but soon the freshness of the evening breeze and the garden's beauty drove all unquiet thoughts from her mind.

She wandered slowly through the trees of the pheasant garden, pausing a moment to look at the gorgeous plumage of the birds in their gilded cages. Then she came to the rosery shut off from the rest of the garden by tall beech-trees, where splashed the fountain near the marble seat on which the lovers had sat together after the theatricals, and where Eberhard Ludwig had agonised when she was hidden in the Judengasse. She passed the new Lusthaus, and looked up with a sigh at the balcony where Serenissimus and she had stood together, and he had told her Forstner called him a ridiculous poet fellow, because he loved the starlit woods at night. She came to the famous fourteenth-century maze, where the cypress-trees had grown so high and dense that it was really a place to lose oneself in, did one not possess the clue to the intricate windings. She walked outside the maze, breathing in the fragrance of the sun-kissed cypress, and turned into the orangery, and here she lingered a while in the alleys of formally cut trees. Then she walked on, and finally gained the wilderness which surrounded the famous grotto; this was a long construction of rocks and shells, very quaint, no doubt, in the days when it was built, yet Time had further enchanted it, adding melancholy and mystery to the half-ruined place. There was a deep, stagnant tank before the grotto, covered with weeds and growing things. In the centre of this tank, among lusty nymphs and playful dolphins, a huge Triton sat on his rocky throne, and from his trident a few drops of water still oozed slowly.

The elaborate waterworks and strange devices could not be quite unhinged, Wilhelmine reflected idly. She recollected how Eberhard Ludwig had shown her the grotto's marvellous springs and tricks; she recalled how, after much heaving and turning at an iron lever, the whole grotto had suddenly been converted into a place of living waters. She wondered if the works were still more rusty now; how sad a waste that this curious old-world pleasantry should be allowed to rust to destruction. Wilhelmine fell into a dream: if she were Duchess, she would have the grotto repaired, not Time's handiwork disturbed; the ferns, the lichen, the twining ivy should remain; the wilderness should not be formalised; only the waterworks should be renewed, and the old devices made perfect. There should be water-fetes by moonlight, with lamps shimmering through the playing fountains, and music, faint and fitful, from unseen players. And she would be mistress of all this.

She was resting on a moss-grown seat, and the gentle breeze played over her brow. She almost slept for a moment. What was that? A discordant note smote disagreeably on her hearing. Why must the canaille make so hideous a noise when it amuses itself? she reflected; probably some ridiculous popular jaunt, some people's gathering. Her lip curled contemptuously. Were she Duchess she would teach the canaille what was fitting for it!

Again the sound disturbed her; it seemed to be coming nearer—probably along the Bergstrasse from Cannstatt. What could it be? She could hear the hoarse roar of many voices; it was terrifying somehow. She sprang up. God in Heaven! could it be a mob incited by Mueller to stone her house? But no, the sound was not in that direction; surely it came from beyond the eastern wall of the Lustgarten. Impossible! But it sounded as though the crowd made its way towards the grotto. The sound increased each breathless moment; she could hear some of the rabble singing hymns. To her horror she realised that they must have passed the Lustgarten walls, that they were actually nearing her. Could she gain the shelter of the Jaegerhaus? She had a vision of a pursuit through the gardens. No! she must hide—the mob must go past her, that was her only hope. Instinct told her that she was the crowd's quarry. Hide? But where? Ah, the grotto. She fled round the water-tank and gained the humid darkness of the grotto. She rushed on, her feet slipping on the slimy stones of the entrance-chamber. If she could only gain the higher gallery she might hide in some dark corner. Ah! here were the steps. She clambered up; the yelling crowd must be close behind now, for she could hear their words: 'Rat out the witch!' 'Death to the sinner!' 'Die Hexe! die verdammte Hexe!'—then some coarse witticisms shouted in Swabian dialect, rude laughter, whoops and curses, groans and whistles, all a mob's animal-like ejaculations.

The Graevenitz shuddered. Would they pass her? They were beneath the grotto now; she could hear their words distinctly: 'To the grotto! the grotto! the witch is there! He told us she was going there!' Merciful Heaven! they knew then—the sentry had told them! The Graevenitz felt that all was lost now. They must find her. She crouched down against the wall. Listen! What was that? 'The grotto is haunted; the white lady walks there,' some one said. They hesitated. She knew no one had entered the grotto yet. 'Nothing worse than a little water haunts the place, comrades,' she heard a voice say, then laughter. A little water? What had Eberhard Ludwig said? 'One might stand a siege here if one turned the waters on from inside; I don't believe anything but a sea-serpent could enter!'—idle words spoken in jest. Was there a chance left? If she could find the lever—but it would not turn—the hinges must be locked with rust. She was seeking wildly along the wall now, her hands rasped and bleeding with scraping against the rough surface. She remembered Eberhard Ludwig had said, 'The trick of it is on the left side of this gallery.' How the words came back to her!—the left side. Yes! But which was the left side of the grotto? She had lost her bearings in the darkness. Ah, could this be it? She grasped it with both hands; it gave slightly; she wrenched at it, throwing all her weight against it. It resisted, and she felt as though her spine must crack with the immense strain; the veins of her temples seemed bursting, the tips of her fingers as though the blood must gush out. Still the heavy, rusty iron bar only gave a little. She could hear the noise outside, but it sounded faint to her, for her entire bodily power was concentrated, and her ears only registered the surging of her own blood. With a sudden wrench the bar flew round in her hands, and she fell forward on her knees, flung with her own impetus. Would the aged mechanism respond? Was there more rust on the inner wheels and springs? Ah! she could hear a gurgling and a whirling of wheels. Yes! there came the water; she heard the trickle, the splashing; then the whole grotto seemed alive. She ran to a broken place in the outer wall of the shell-and-stucco building; she crumbled off a shell which impeded her vision. Now she could see the mob below, though the rushing of the water deadened the voices, and she could not distinguish the words. She saw two men come tumbling out of the grotto, drenched and dripping objects. She saw them gesticulating wildly, and guessed that they were describing their reception in the water-cave. Even through the noise of the water she heard a roar of laughter go up from those who had not penetrated the grotto. The crowd's humour seemed changed; the men were no longer fierce, they were amused, laughing. All crowds are curiously fickle, easily aroused, easily appeased, and the Swabian especially loves to be overreached by a joke. She saw that the mob's attention was diverted from her, and she knew that the danger was passed for the moment.

Would Zollern have been to the Jaegerhaus, have heard the shouting, realised, and called out the guard to rescue her? Would the waterworks fail and the rabble catch her, after all? Or would the people grow bolder, face the water, and hunt her out of her hiding-place? She listened intently, but even if a detachment of cavalry had been on the way, she could have heard nothing save the noisy merriment below her and the splashing water in the cave. Was that a sword-blade flashing in the distance? Yes, thank God! she could see the outer rows of rioters looking anxiously towards where she had seen the glint of steel through the trees. The crowd suddenly dispersed for the most part, men ran hither and thither aimlessly, but a knot of several hundreds remained together, grown hostile again at the approach of hostility. Sitting stiffly on his horse was Zollern, riding at the head of the cavalry beside the captain of the Silver Guard. Monsieur de Zollern reined in his horse before the mob, commanding silence with a wave of his hand. The crowd toned down, though there were still a few angry murmurs.

'What do you in his Highness's Lustgarten?' said Zollern in a stern, clear voice, strangely unlike his usual quiet and courtly tones. A confused murmur ran through the crowd. 'Answer, or we shall ride you down,' he said.

A few voices responded sullenly: 'We seek a witch,' and again an ominous growl went up from the crowd.

'Learn that the Duke's Lustgarten is no place for you to seek a witch,' thundered the old man. 'There are no witches here or in any of his Highness's domains. And if you dare to molest a friend of the Duke's, you shall be massacred without mercy! I give you time to remove yourselves from this garden, while I count ten; one, two,' he counted. At the word 'ten' the guard charged upon the wavering mass of humanity, which fled before the troopers' swords.

'Y etes-vous vraiment, Mademoiselle?' he called, but the Graevenitz from the gallery's higher level could see that the mob was not yet entirely driven from the garden, and she dared not reply.

Zollern guessed that were she in truth hidden in the grotto, she would prefer to postpone her exit until she could appear without being seen by the soldiers, who were returning from chasing the intruders. When the captain of the guard rode up to Zollern he requested him to withdraw his men, adding that it was unprecedented insolence for the rabble to have dared to break into his Highness's Lustgarten. It struck the old courtier that the captain's answer was but half-hearted. Was even the guard infected with hostility against the Graevenitz?

'The insolence to dare seek a witch here!' said Zollern, scrutinising the captain's face closely.

'Witchcraft should be punished wherever it hides, Monseigneur,' returned the captain gravely.

'Yes, indeed, if it exists, M. le Capitaine,' replied Zollern; 'but I beg you draw off your men; I will remain here and rest.'

At this moment Zollern realised that the Graevenitz must be conveyed out of the country immediately; the guard itself was not trustworthy where she was concerned. He watched the soldiers till they passed out of sight, and then he reapproached the grotto.

'Answer me now if you are indeed there, Mademoiselle; I am alone,' he called, and he heard Wilhelmine's voice from within, but owing to the rushing waters her words were indistinguishable.

Meanwhile Wilhelmine was struggling to draw back the lever, for she could not leave the grotto before the water subsided. It was no easy matter to turn the heavy bar, though the resistance was not so great as when she had turned on the defending streams, still it lasted several minutes ere she accomplished her task and heard the splashing and gurgling of the water subside. Thus Zollern concluded he had been mistaken when he had fancied he heard her voice within, and when Wilhelmine reached the doorway of the grotto he was preparing to depart.

She called him softly: 'Oh, my friend, help me home,' and there was a tone of appeal in her voice. Zollern came to her quickly, and raising her torn and bleeding hands to his lips, kissed them tenderly. 'Guard me, protect me, Monseigneur. I am very lonely,' she said.

'Until death takes me I will be your friend,' he replied, and Madame de Ruth would have suffered a jealous pang had she heard.

With a feeling of unreality, as though she were just awakened from an evil dream, Wilhelmine found herself once more in her pretty yellow-hung saloon. Maria, the maid, kneeled beside her, bathing the wounds in her palms made by the rough surface of the grotto walls. Slime from the moss-grown stones was on Wilhelmine's dress, and deep red marks of rust from the waterworks' lever had stained the breast of her gown where she had pressed on the bar.

Zollern stood before her. He was urging her immediate departure from Stuttgart; the place was unsafe for her in the Duke's absence, he averred. The Graevenitz responded wearily. She was willing to depart—indeed it was impossible for her to remain—but whither? Guestrow? Zollern reflected. He owned a small castle at Schaffhausen in Switzerland, and he begged her to accept it as a refuge. 'And I pray you,' he added, 'keep it always if it pleases you; we never know when a humble refuge may not be welcome.' And so it was decided that Wilhelmine was to depart immediately, accompanied to the frontier by a hundred guards commanded by a certain Captain Schrader, whom Zollern knew he could trust, because this officer was anxious to make his way at court by pleasing the Duke.

The dawn was breaking through the deep blue of the night sky when Wilhelmine started on her journey to Schaffhausen. The cavalcade rattled down the Graben, Wilhelmine's heavy coach in the midst of the famous Silver Guard. They passed out of the town-gate and gained the open country, where the fields sent forth a fragrant breath, and the woods were pungent, sweet, and fresh from the cool night. It reminded Wilhelmine of that May morning a twelvemonth since, when she had entered Wirtemberg, and yet, though Nature smiled then as on that day, how different it had seemed to her. Then everything had been radiant with Spring happiness, and her heart had responded gladly, though she was but a solitary stranger venturing into an unknown country. Now she felt half angry with the woods and fields for their peaceful joyousness, and her soul gave forth no answering note of gladness, though she rode at ease in a fine coach surrounded by a brilliant escort as though she were a queen. Her thoughts were bitter, poisoned with disgust, for she realised that, in spite of her great prosperity, she was in truth a fugitive before 'la canaille,' and, as she journeyed, she took no pleasure in the gracious loveliness around her. Her mind was busy with plans for revenge upon the brutal mob and the hostile burghers who thus drove her forth, and she vowed to herself that her enemies should repent their insolence, that the canaille should weep tears of blood and tremble before her they had insulted.



CHAPTER XI

THE MOCK MARRIAGE

MARECHAL LE DUC DE VILLARS was no brilliant, victorious hero, judged by the standard of a century which had seen such military geniuses as Turenne, as the great Conde, as Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy. Villars was essentially a wily tactician, and his exploits were useful, but he lacked the dash, the verve which characterise the great commanders of that epoch. It was his system to overrun an invaded country, skilfully avoiding actual combat with the defending army, which pursued him impotently along the ghastly trail of ravage. Thus Villars, with no loss to his troops, spread famine through the land, for he plundered and devastated wherever he passed. He conducted the brief invasion of Wirtemberg in 1707 on these lines. Crossing the Rhine during the night of May 21st, he plunged unopposed into the very heart of the Swabian land. Eberhard Ludwig, who, along with the Elector of Hanover, commanded one portion of the Imperial army, executed a turning movement mighty like a retreat, but Villars had so overpowering a majority of men that an attack upon their united strength would have been more than hazardous. Thus the whole country lay at the Frenchmen's mercy, and they swarmed over town, village, and farm, harrying, burning, pillaging, and always disappearing ere the would-be defenders came up. Eberhard Ludwig followed hotly, hoping to engage separate columns of the huge army, but it was too late, and after a futile pursuit round the entire country, he had the chagrin of seeing the French enter Stuttgart. Here Villars remained but a few days. Wilhelmine said afterwards that 'l'ennui de Stuttgard' had proved a greater defence than the entire Imperial army! Be this as it may, Villars evacuated Stuttgart in an amazingly short time, and retired eastwards to the ancient town of Schorndorf. Now the Duchess-mother emerged from her dower-house at Stetten, and craved a meeting with the Duc de Villars, who, as a gentleman, could not refuse the ancient dame's request.

There is a popular tradition that they met in a field between Schorndorf and Stetten, neither being willing to accept the hospitality of the other, and that here they discussed and settled the terms of the evacuation of Wirtemberg and the sum of the indemnity, all of which was afterwards solemnly ratified by the Geheimraths of Stuttgart, who, willingly, permitted the Duchess-mother to bear nearly the entire cost of the indemnity, a matter of some two hundred thousand gulden. Villars, upon payment of this sum, half of which he is reported by German historians to have retained for his own uses, now left Wirtemberg, and marched towards the French frontier, leaving, however, six thousand men under General Vivant in the country.

The Imperial army under command of the Elector of Hanover was at Heilbronn in Wirtemberg, a mediaeval Imperial free town. Eberhard Ludwig, in command of the Wirtemberg contingent, was with the army. His Highness had taken up his quarters in the ancient Abbey of Maulbronn, between which and Heilbronn spread the encampment of the Imperial army. Eberhard Ludwig had chosen Maulbronn for his quarters, thinking that the peace of the Monastery, with its shadowy, highly vaulted cloisters, and its old-world garden, might soothe the restlessness which had devoured his being since his absence from Wilhelmine. In Maulbronn's garden stands the haunted tower where legend says that Doctor Faustus, the frenzied searcher for the elixir of eternal life, bartered his soul to Satan in return for a span of youth and love. The Faust tower faces the great cloister, and they say the Doctor, when sealing his pact with the devil, was disturbed by the monks' chanting.

Eberhard Ludwig revelled in the garden and its fantastic legends, but his yearning for Wilhelmine only grew the stronger. Why was she not with him to dream in the cool silence of the cloister? How she would love the garden with its luxuriance of old-world flowers—the fragrant roses planted by some long-dead monk—the huge tree-peonies. The very breezes seemed legend-laden. Wilhelmine! beloved! It was a futile thing indeed for this poet-prince to endeavour to forget the woman he loved! In a garden so wondrous beautiful, in this place of dreaming, he could but dream the more. So, when the news came that Villars had retired, his Highness decided he must follow Wilhelmine to Switzerland forthwith. Forstner was summoned, and the Wirtemberg troops placed under his command. Of course he protested he was not efficient, but, as usual, Eberhard Ludwig the impetuous overruled him.

The news of his Highness's departure caused angry consternation in Stuttgart. Johanna Elizabetha wept, but the Duchess-mother raged. She had fancied that her son, deeply obliged to her for her generous action of the war indemnity, would listen to her reasonable voice as a reward.

'Ridiculous!' he argued. 'I never asked her to pay the indemnity; if she chooses to do so, well and good, but it does not bind me to obedience.'

There is a pathetic letter from the Duchess-mother to her son, a dignified epistle with a very human postscriptum, wherein bubbles over a mother's hatred for her son's seducer, the honest woman's furious disdain of the triumphant charm of an adventuress.

'MON FILS,—Si j'ai delivre le pays du fleau francois j'attends que vous delivriez la Cour du fleau de votre peche. Revenez a Stuttgard et faites votre devoir de mari, de pere, de fils et de Prince Chretien. Vous redonnerez la paix a votre mere,

'MAGDALENE SYBILLE, PRINCESSE DE HESSE DARMSTADT, 'DUCHESSE DOUAIRIERE DE WIRTEMBERG.

'Cette Graevenitz est une p——! J'aurois des preuves si je voulois les donner; je vous prie de me croire qu'elle ne merite pas votre faveur!'

Possibly, had the Duchess-mother denied herself the satisfaction of writing this postscriptum, Eberhard Ludwig might indeed have returned to Stuttgart for a time, and who can tell how a man's fancy may vary in a few months? But being a lover and a chivalrous gentleman, the unfortunate paragraph roused him to a white heat of championship for his mistress. What! she 'une p——?' Ah! how evil was the world! No man, and, above all, no woman, could understand Wilhelmine. She was grossly misjudged, cruelly persecuted. Thus, when he read this letter from his mother (which reached him when he was starting for Switzerland), he only shrugged his shoulders angrily, and crushing the missive into his saddle holster, spurred his horse forward, and galloped southward to the calumniated lady of his heart.

Wilhelmine had passed a solitary two months at Schaffhausen. Zollern's castle stood on the left bank of the Rhine, overlooking the great waterfall, whose delicious thunder had soothed her to calmer thoughts. She passed the long hours in reading and making music, and the peaceful days had added brilliancy to her splendid healthfulness. Thus, when Eberhard Ludwig came to Schaffhausen, he found her an even more forceful, vital, fresh-skinned woman than had been the beautiful girl he left at Stuttgart.

She met him with passionate happiness, and for a few days their intercourse was a prolonged rhapsody of the senses. At length, however, their dream was broken by the unwelcome advent of a messenger with despatches from Vienna to Field-Marshal of the Imperial Army, Commander of the Swabian Army Corps, Monseigneur le Duc de Wirtemberg. His Highness was furious, also anxious. Why had the fool Forstner not attended to these despatches? They were important commands concerning the army, and needed immediate attention, and now, having been all the way to Heilbronn, here they were sent to Switzerland! His Highness fumed, cursed Forstner; it was exceedingly awkward, orders from Vienna, and Eberhard Ludwig in Switzerland. He had given full power to Forstner to transact all business in his name.

'Of course, a plot,' said Wilhelmine, 'a plot to separate us again!'

His Highness was anxious, but she soothed him as usual, and he sent the despatches back with orders to Forstner to attend to the business. Peace again for a day or so, then Forstner arrived at Schaffhausen.

'Why in hell's name do you follow me, M. de Forstner?' was the Duke's greeting.

'I come because it is my duty, Monseigneur!'

'Your duty? Let me remind you that your duty lies where I left you—with the army. But now that you have come, kindly tell me your errand.' It was harshly said, and Forstner was deeply wounded. Could this be the noble, courteous prince he had served for many years, the friend of his childhood, the gallant companion in arms? Poor Forstner, he had yet to discover that the tiresome friend is always ill-treated eventually.

'My errand, Monseigneur, will be unwelcome to you, I know, for I have come to urge you to return to the army immediately. The Elector of Hanover is furious at your Highness's sudden departure. He says openly that it is contrary to both military discipline and, I regret, mon Prince, to honour. He says if all his generals permitted themselves to run after their mistresses when it suited them, the army would be in a parlous state.' Indeed the Elector of Hanover had expressed himself in less measured words.

'I am a Prince commanding my own troops allied with the Imperial army, and I am at liberty to go and come without permission from M. l'Electeur,' said Eberhard Ludwig haughtily.

'I implore your Highness to listen to reason,' cried Forstner; 'you are jeopardising your reputation as a soldier for the sake of a ——'

The epithet he used was forcible, and Eberhard Ludwig started forward angrily.

'Yes, it is the task of a true friend to speak the truth without reserve' (alas, Forstner!), 'and Mademoiselle de Graevenitz is an abandoned woman.' As he uttered these words Wilhelmine entered the apartment.

'Mon Prince, is it thus you permit your friends to speak of me?' she said in a low voice.

'A thousand times no!' cried his Highness. 'Forstner, you leave my service for ever. Go!' He pointed dramatically to the door, but Forstner had not concluded his peroration, and he had no intention of being silenced this time; he was a diligent, persistent friend, poor soul.

'Mademoiselle de Graevenitz, I appeal to you; his Highness is playing a ridiculous role in the sight of Europe! Give him up, send him back to duty, to honour, to his great military career!'

'Monsieur, you come here to dictate to his Highness, it seems! Since when is that your right?' She spoke sneeringly, and Eberhard Ludwig felt that her taunt was directed in part at himself. She did not deem him capable of resisting Forstner, perhaps? she considered him as a being whose conduct could be dictated.

'I know my duty, sir,' he said; 'you have no need to teach it me.'

'Indeed, Monseigneur, you have forgotten it since yonder lady's advent!' Forstner was getting beyond himself.

'I have not forgotten how to defend from insult the lady whom I love and honour,' said Eberhard Ludwig coldly, 'and I request you, Forstner, to withdraw immediately.'

'Mademoiselle de Graevenitz, you have ruined his Highness!' shouted Forstner; 'he is untrue to all his vows: you are a ——'; but his words are unrepeatable, even Wilhelmine shrank back. Eberhard Ludwig drew his sword and forced his over-zealous friend through the door.

A moment afterwards his Highness returned and, flinging himself upon his knees before the Graevenitz, poured forth a torrent of adoring words, but the lady remained impervious to his pleading.

'I cannot suffer such treatment,' she answered; 'I can but beg your Highness to depart from me for ever. I shall reside here, drag out a solitary existence in this refuge which my friend Monseigneur de Zollern has given me! Your Highness cannot defend me from insult, and I do not choose to be flaunted as a wanton.'

'Alas, what can I do? I will give you all, but I have not the power to legalise your position.'

'So I see, Monseigneur, and therefore I beg you to depart.'

'Wilhelmine, do you love me? Alas! alas!'

'I love you, mon Prince, but these taunts are unbearable. I have no one to protect me—you cannot, for you yourself are the cause of all the indignities heaped upon me.'

'Ah, would that I could make you Duchess, my wife, safe from insult!'

'You dare not, though other princes have had the courage thus to shield those they loved.'

'I dare not? I? God! who shall tell me that I dare not?' he cried.

'You dare not,' she answered, and again as she swept from the room, over her shoulder she flung scornfully: 'You dare not!'

* * * * *

In the panelled living-room of the Neuhaus, on the morning of the 29th July 1707, Madame de Ruth and her peasant servant were busying themselves with a large table and a heap of silken hangings. The lady was draping the table with these, and her efforts had caused her highly piled-up head-dress to become deranged; the elaborate structure leaned on one side and scattered a shower of powder over Madame de Ruth's shoulders. The servant interrupted his work of hammering nails into the draped silk on the table; he stared at his mistress and grinned. 'Go on, stupid head, and never mind an old woman's hairdress,' she said good-humouredly. 'I shall be fine enough this afternoon, and so wilt thou, for I shall give thee a new coat.' She rose from her knees and surveyed her handiwork. Taking a large bowl filled with roses, she placed it upon the table, then she went to a cupboard and began to hunt through its varied contents. She sought a Bible, and indeed it was the first time in her life that she had searched the Scriptures, as she reflected grimly. She had a dim recollection of having seen a worn Bible consorting oddly with the other books in that cupboard. After some time she found the Bible and placed it upon the silk-draped table. She stood a moment absent-mindedly, gazing from the window at the sunlight playing through the delicate tracery in the beech branches without, her hands mechanically turning over the leaves of the Bible. Suddenly her fingers touched something between the pages, something that crumbled away beneath her touch, a withered flower, the faded, brittle ghost of some vanished summer day. She drew away her hand quickly as though the flower stung her. It had conjured up the long-past loss and sorrow of a day when she had given birth to a child and Death came hurrying to gather the little life. Madame de Ruth remembered how eagerly she had read in the Book of Life during the sad hours of her recovery, seeking wildly, miserably for consolation, and she recalled how the kind old peasant woman, who nursed and mourned with her for the baby's loss, had brought her a flower which bloomed near the piteously small mound beneath which the little one slept for ever. And Madame de Ruth had laid the blossom tenderly between the Bible's pages, and now, after long years of forgetful gaiety and dissipation, the yearning, unsatisfied motherhood welled up in her heart and she wept again.

* * * * *

Once more we are in the panelled room at Neuhaus, and again is assembled the company which on that portentous November evening of the preceding year had discussed the plan of summoning Wilhelmine von Graevenitz, she who was to be their tool in an ordinary court intrigue. Madame de Ruth, the hostess; Monseigneur de Zollern; Friedrich Graevenitz, since a few days become Count of the Empire; Marie Graevenitz, his bigoted Catholic wife; Monsieur the Hofmarshal Stafforth.

'It is madness, rank lunacy!' Stafforth was saying vehemently. 'Illegal and impossible, it will spell disgrace and misfortune to us all. The Emperor will interfere, for this is going too far. We must hinder this farcical ceremony; his Highness cannot marry two wives! It will be Moempelgard over again! Think how absurd, Graevenitz! Cannot you see that this farce is bigamy?'

Count Graevenitz held his hands over his brow. 'I agree with you, Monsieur de Stafforth. My sister goes too far. It is very hard on me; I advised her to be satisfied with a settled annuity, and to live peacefully with me, her brother, the head of her house. His Highness can always visit her—a great honour indeed——' He broke off, seeing the sneer on Monseigneur de Zollern's face.

'I wash my hands of the whole affair!' cried Graevenitz distractedly.

'Ce cher Pilate,' murmured Zollern. Madame de Ruth laughed.

'Graevenitz, your sister will be Duchess, never fear! Marie, she will befriend the Holy Church in Wirtemberg.' Madame de Ruth addressed herself to Marie Graevenitz, but it was Zollern whom she observed as she spoke. 'Stafforth, you will become a Count; and for myself, I shall see the last of her Dull Highness from Baden. That is my reward.' She laughed, but no responsive gaiety came from the rest of the company. Indeed, the intrigue had assumed proportions which alarmed Wilhelmine's allies. Her brother had learned to fear her—he was jealous of her now. Stafforth, having been foolish enough to incur her displeasure by tactless amorous advances, feared that once her position became unassailable she would cause him to be dismissed from court. Marie Graevenitz was horrified at the idea of her sister-in-law's great success; she said it was sinful. Poor soul, she was very jealous. Zollern, however, regarded the strange marriage with favour. He foresaw the complications ahead, and intended to steer for a happy landing of the Prince and his new bride on the eternal shores of Roman Catholicism. The Pope would declare Eberhard Ludwig's former alliance with Johanna Elizabetha to be null and void, and, in return, the Duchy of Wirtemberg would be gathered back to the Holy Church.

Madame de Ruth alone rejoiced honestly in the brilliant ending of the 'great intrigue,' and if there was another thought in her mind, it was delight at the discomfiture of the dull Duchess; but chiefly the old courtesan was happy that this honour befell her friend. She had conceived a real affection for Wilhelmine.

Zollern tapped his cane on the parquet floor, rhythmically, persistently. To Madame de Ruth the tapping sound seemed to beat on her brain, and she put out her hand imploring silence. 'How gay, my friends!' she exclaimed; 'really, we owe our friend a little merriment on her wedding day!'

'I do not think I can permit my sister to go through this marriage ceremony. It would show a nicer spirit towards me, the head of her house, if she considered the difficulties she may land me in——'

'Bonte divine! Graevenitz, what foolishness!' said Madame de Ruth sharply. 'If you could manage to forget your own important existence for a time——' She was interrupted by the entry of a personage of clerical appearance. Madame de Ruth rose to greet the new arrival. 'Hochwuerden,' she said in German, 'you received my letter? and you are ready to do as I require—ask no questions and marry a couple, you may know who, but on that head silence until your testimony is necessary; and then you are prepared to swear you have married them in all legal and religious form? In return a hundred gulden, and I undertake also to have the Pfarrhaus repaired. Is that well? yes?—well, let me present you: Monseigneur de Zollern you have the honour to know already; M. le Comte de Graevenitz, Madame la Comtesse, M. de Stafforth, may I present to you Herr Pfahler, Pastor of the Lutheran Church at Aalendorf?'

The man bowed deeply to each in turn. Marie Graevenitz scarcely acknowledged his salute for fear of endangering her Catholic soul by intercourse with a Protestant pastor.

'Now, Herr Pastor, are those arrangements complete? See here, I have draped you an altar. Oh! unnecessary, you say, for a Lutheran marriage? I regret, enfin—so much prettier, hein? Well, you can stand before it to marry our friends, it will not affect you! Then, here are two cushions for them to kneel on; a Bible, pen, and paper for the legal documents. Yes, is that all? Well, I may now call our friends,' and she rustled out of the room.

A constrained silence fell on the four occupants of the apartment. The Pastor who had followed after Madame de Ruth to don his black 'talar,' the clerical gown of the Lutheran divine, returned and took up his position before the altar table. He busied himself turning over the leaves of the Bible, and the faded flower fluttered out and fell on to one of the cushions prepared for the bride and bridegroom. The door opened and Eberhard Ludwig, Duke of Wirtemberg, entered the room. He bowed gravely to the assembled company, then moved forward and stood facing Pfahler before the improvised altar. The guests had risen at his Highness's entry. The silence was intense. Of a sudden a huge black form bounded through the window. Marie Graevenitz screamed shrilly, and the Herr Pastor started violently.

'It is only my dog, Madame,' said his Highness. 'He has found me after all. I left him locked up in my sleeping-room. Here, Melac, lie down! quiet! good dog!' he called, and the wolf-hound obediently stretched himself beside the Duke.

'I thought it was the devil,' Marie Graevenitz whimpered.

'The devil, Madame, come to attend these espousals,' remarked Stafforth with a sneer.

'Silence, Monsieur,' said his Highness haughtily; and once more a brooding stillness fell on the company, broken only by Melac's heavy breathing, and the flutter of the Bible's pages between the Pastor's nervous fingers. Would the bride never come? this waiting was intolerable. Eberhard Ludwig stood stern and silent, his hand resting on his rapier's hilt. At length there came the swish of silken garments rasping over the rough wooden boards of the corridor floor. Once more the door was flung open, and Wilhelmine von Graevenitz stood on the threshold. She looked like some lavish flower of a tropic clime, a gorgeous white blossom, surrounded by rich golden outer petals. Her gown was of the delicate yellow colour which she loved, and her bare breast was creamy white, and showing the blue tracery of the veins through the fine skin. From her shoulders fell a heavy white brocade cloak, trimmed with ermine like the coronation robe of a queen. Her hair was powdered and piled high on her head, the towering masses adding height to her great stature. She looked a queen among women, a glorious figure of youth and majesty, and it was little wonder that Eberhard Ludwig was enthralled.

'Dressed as a royal princess already!' spitefully whispered Stafforth to Marie Graevenitz, who looked at her radiant sister-in-law with envy written on her narrow face.

Eberhard Ludwig came forward, bowed profoundly before his bride, and led her towards the altar. The Pastor stared in astonishment when he saw the woman he had undertaken to marry to his Prince, for he recognised the traveller he had met at Tuebingen. The stranger's face had haunted his dreams.

And now the brief ceremony commenced. The Pastor, evidently nervous, mumbled his words indistinctly; and of a truth, no one of the assembled company paid much heed to the sermon and prayers, for each was busy with thoughts of personal ambition and intrigue, excepting Marie Graevenitz, whose lips moved rapidly in prayer that she might be forgiven for taking part in an heretical rite. Madame de Ruth watched Wilhelmine with adoring eyes; perchance she dreamed this beautiful woman to be her child returned to her. Poor mite, who slept forgotten in its tiny grave——!

'May the blessing of God rest upon you, and may God enable you to keep sacred the vows you have made this day,' concluded the Pastor, and the bride and bridegroom rose from their knees.

'I have the honour to present to you Madame la Comtesse d'Urach, which title I hereby confer upon my beloved wife, pending the bestowal of the first title of my Dukedom, which I shall hope to be able to offer to my wife in a few months' time. Meanwhile, I beg you, my friends, of your good feeling, to pay the same respects and courtesies to the Countess of Urach as you, so kindly, pay to myself.'

Up jumped Madame de Ruth and kissed Wilhelmine on both cheeks, then sank to the ground before her in a deep courtesy; but the other friends hung back, save Zollern, who came forward and, bowing over the bride's hand, remarked: 'To every beautiful woman should be rendered homage.' It was an adroit compromise, half reminder, half graceful, tactful compliment, for naturally a Prince of his house could not be expected to pay royal honours to any Countess of Urach—or even Duchess of Wirtemberg, save from courtesy or worldly wisdom. Stafforth, the adventurer, had an ugly sneer on his countenance, and was evidently embarrassed, so took refuge in the frequent attitude of the vulgar when ill at ease—a noisy jocularity.

'Ha! ha!' he laughed boisterously, 'and now for the wedding feast! Bride and bridegroom, come along—and we'll have a song to cheer us!'

Friedrich Graevenitz, full of fictitious emotion, was kissing his sister's hand repeatedly, and making little speeches to her, the beauty of which moved him almost to tears; though when he saw no one was admiring him, he retired in aggrieved silence, thinking 'What a bad spirit these people show towards me!'

Marie Graevenitz stiffly congratulated her sister-in-law, and pressed a meagre cheekbone against Wilhelmine's glowing face; she called this a kiss. Pfahler bowed before the bride: 'I have had the honour to meet your Highness,'—Wilhelmine started, Zollern tapped with his stick impatiently—'to meet your Highness before—one day at Tuebingen; but your Highness could not recollect. I had no idea then that I was speaking with so exalted a lady.'

'Nor were you then,' said Wilhelmine with that bright humorous smile of hers; 'but indeed, Hochwuerden, I do remember, and I recollect how you told me of the history of master races cradled in the Swabian hills.'

'I have assisted to-day at a great historic scene. May a new race of strong men and princes arise herefrom!' said Pfahler, the historic dreamer.

'Umph! ces bourgeois heretiques ne savent jamais trouver le juste milieu,' growled Zollern to Madame de Ruth.

Now his Highness became impatient, the embarrassment of the scene seemed to grow each moment. 'A thousand thanks, dear friend,' he said, turning to Madame de Ruth, 'a thousand thanks for all you have done for us, but we must leave you now. Come, bid us God-speed!' He led the way from the panelled room to the house door, before which stood a chaise de poste with six horses, which the three postillions restrained with difficulty. Dressed in his fine new coat, the peasant servant of Neuhaus stood grinning in the background.

'Come, Madame!' called his Highness. Wilhelmine sprang into the chaise, and Madame de Ruth, perilously balanced on the step, wrapped a white lace mantilla round the bride. The horses bounded forward, and, urged by the postillions, raced away at a hand gallop.

This was the first of that furious driving with which the favourite, in after years, habitually dashed through the country. It was one of the causes of her unpopularity with the peasants; they cursed her and her wild horses. 'Why such haste to do the devil's work?' they muttered; and they cursed the dust which the chariot left, as the hated Graevenitzin thundered through the villages.



CHAPTER XII

THE MOCK COURT

'The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Hamlet.

AFTER their marriage his Highness and the Countess of Urach took up their residence in the castle of Hohen-Tuebingen, where Wilhelmine had wandered, a lonely stranger, on the morning of her arrival in Wirtemberg. Now she was the queen of the grim fortress, and, looking upon the fair valley and the distant hills, she would often ponder on the marvellous workings of her destiny.

The court of Wirtemberg naturally held aloof from the unlawful magnificence at Tuebingen, and her Ladyship of Urach realised that she must form a circle of her own, so she summoned her family from the north.

Her sister, Emma Sittmann, came from Berlin accompanied by her husband, the merchant's warehouse clerk, who it was said, had been at one time hairdresser to a Countess of Wartensleben, and had been dismissed for his insolence. A cousin came with the Sittmanns, Schuetz by name, a shady attorney who had been discredited for sharp practices in various towns, including Vienna, where, however, he still retained business relations of a mysterious and probably reprehensible character. A number of friends and relations, both of Schuetz's and Sittmann's, also hastened to Tuebingen. Sittmann had been married once before he took Wilhelmine's sister to wife, and of this former union he had two gawky sons, who accompanied their father and stepmother to this land of promise.