Old Frau von Graevenitz was invited by her successful daughter to repair to Wirtemberg but the harsh old lady responded by a bluff refusal and a command to Wilhelmine to return to virtue. She never visited Wirtemberg, and though she condescended to receive small sums from Friedrich Graevenitz, regardless of the fact that the money actually came from Wilhelmine, she remained sternly disapproving to the end of her days.

It was but a small court, and Wilhelmine found it all insufficient, so she selected from among the Tuebingen students half a dozen youths of undistinguished birth but undoubted intelligence, and caused them to be given minor court appointments. Stafforth was dismissed; his wife was Johanna Elizabetha's friend, and the Countess disliked him. Knowing him for an unscrupulous adventurer himself, she judged him capable of gauging the small social standing and slightly veneered vulgarity of Sittmann, Schuetz and company. So Stafforth's Oberhofmarshall's baton was conferred on Friedrich Graevenitz, together with a considerable income. Sittmann was made a baron (of Wirtemberg, not of the Empire); Schuetz became Geheimrath and personal secretary to his Highness; Madame de Ruth was Oberhofmeisterin—'Dame de Deshonneur,' Wilhelmine called her in private—and the two ladies laughed much at the recollection of this, poor Johanna Elizabetha's solitary witticism. The Sittmann was Dame du Palais, her stepsons were Kammerjunker (equerries) to the Duke. Pages were chosen from among the younger Tuebingen students, and any chance visitor was given a high-sounding title and a sham office. The only work of the whole heterogeneous collection was to be gorgeously attired; but this was easy, as the Duke paid all expenses; to be young and gay, or you were even permitted to be old, could you be witty; and before every other duty came the obligation of treating the Countess of Urach with all the ceremony and adulation which the world is accustomed to offer to queens.

The Duke's own guard was commanded to Tuebingen, and so much silver was added to their uniforms that the regiment now thoroughly earned its appellation of Silver Guard. Many Tuebingen students were enrolled in the corps; indeed, it was imperative there should be a leaven of Wilhelmine's adherents in the troop, for Zollern said that he did not trust the old guard where she was concerned.

An erstwhile strolling company of Italian comedians was installed as court play-actors; a number of French fiddlers and singers arrived, and were officially entitled 'The Countess of Urach's Musicians.'

It was all very absurd, without doubt; a mock court, but gay, brilliant, lavish, and gradually various members of the legitimate court filtered in to Tuebingen and were swept into the festive stream.

Eberhard Ludwig was supremely happy. If at moments he shrank a little from the Sittmanns, or Schuetz plebeian airs and insolences, still he was really entertained and amused. Never a hint of dullness at Wilhelmine's court. The witticisms were atrocious, the comedies lewd, the dancing a trifle indecorous perhaps, but her real gaiety, her innate knowledge of limits, and above all, her unfailing admiration for her 'husband,' made life delightful at Tuebingen. Towards the beginning of September the 'court' moved to Urach, where the Duke wished to enjoy some shooting and stag-hunting.

There was but one small cloud on Wilhelmine's sky at this time, and this was the silence maintained by the Emperor and his advisers. Eberhard Ludwig had informed his Majesty of his marriage, craving his suzerain to ratify its legality, and permit him to raise the Countess of Urach to the rank of Duchess of Wirtemberg. He set forth that, during ten years, his former wife Johanna Elizabetha had been sterile, and therefore, as reigning Prince, he was at liberty to declare that alliance null, and for the good of his country take to wife another woman capable of bearing children. He undertook to provide for Johanna Elizabetha according to her royal position, and declared he would accord her all honours due to an ex-Duchess of Wirtemberg, viz. residence, monies, guards, privileges, titles, etc. The Duke's epistle was an astounding document enough, especially coming from a Prince whose repudiated wife had presented him with an heir, albeit that heir, the Erbprinz Friedrich Ludwig, was but a sickly specimen of mankind—a youth unlikely to live long enough to succeed his father or to provide successors to his House. In this imperial silence lay the opportunity of Zollern and the Catholic party, who believed that if the Emperor proved obdurate, it would be possible to obtain from Rome a decree of annulment of Johanna Elizabetha's marriage, on the pretext of State necessity. Of course, the price of this papal concession was Eberhard Ludwig's conversion to the Roman faith, and the reinstalment of Catholicism as the State religion of Wirtemberg.

Zollern fully realised that Wilhelmine was playing a dangerous game; he knew that any day an imperial edict might crush her, branding her as a bigamist. The brunt would fall on her, for Eberhard Ludwig, as reigning Prince and valuable ally of Imperial Vienna, would escape with a reprimand. But for her an Austrian prison was on the cards, or at best perpetual exile and outlawry, which would make it difficult for any State to befriend her. He bethought him of his kinsman, Frederick I. of Prussia, an amiable monarch, and Zollern's personal friend and cousin. If Austria proved obdurate, and Rome objected to entering into a dispute with Vienna, at least Wilhelmine could find powerful protection at Berlin. Zollern wrote to his cousin of Prussia, praying him to grant the Countess of Graevenitz, Countess of Urach, a perpetual Schutzbrief, or Lettre de Sauvegarde—an official document binding the King of Prussia to protect the lady and her property, if she appealed for aid. Frederick I. granted this without ado.

Still the imperial answer tarried. It behoved Eberhard Ludwig to announce his marriage formally to the officials at Stuttgart. Wilhelmine enjoying the prospect of the scene urged Serenissimus to summon his Geheimraethe, or Privy Councillors, to Urach immediately. They were to arrive at the castle in the afternoon, she decided; the marriage was to be announced, then a State banquet was to take place in the ancient tilting-hall beneath the castle. This latter, of course, she would not attend; but it would be followed by a grand ball in the Golden Hall, where all should greet her as Queen of the Revels, as legal wife of their Duke, as Countess of Urach and future Duchess of Wirtemberg.

Thus it befell that on the 15th of September 1707, eight pompous gentlemen, Geheimraethe of the Dukedom, arrived at the castle of Urach. They were met with much ceremony at the gate and conducted to the Golden Hall. A delightful quaint place this: picture to yourself a large apartment, three sides of which open out in lattice windows through which, if your eye wanders, you see the rounded Swabian hills densely clad in beech and pine. On the summit of one of the nearest of these hills stands the grim fortress of Hohen-Urach, an impregnable stronghold of mediaeval days turned prison in the eighteenth century. The Golden Hall is decorated, as its name portends, with gilded devices on the wall, with stately golden pilasters and formal green-painted trees, whose branches meander quaintly over one entire wall of the room, that wall unbroken by the windows. Over the two heavily carved doors the tree-branches twine and twist into the word 'ATTEMPTO,' the proud motto of Count Eberhard 'the Bearded,' a great gentleman of the Cinque cento, whose nuptials with a Princess of Mantua were celebrated in the same Golden Hall. In memory whereof their nuptial bed still stood in the hall where Eberhard Ludwig assembled his Privy Council for the announcement of his marriage with Wilhelmine von Graevenitz, the Mecklemburg adventuress. The councillors kept waiting in the Golden Hall guessed the preposterous demand their Duke would make to them. They were in a fine quandary. What to say to a Prince who answered questions of legal right by: 'I am above the law, alter the petty phrase in your code-book.' A Prince, mark you, who could punish resistance with death. And yet at Vienna was a suzerain who might chastise the official participators in a crime against the Empire's laws.

So the eight councillors stood moodily waiting for their Prince to appear, and contemplating with anger the elaborate preparations for the evening's feast. Such flowers, such rich hangings, and what were those two fine chairs?

The Duke was coming; they heard a woman's voice in the corridor, a woman's laugh—most unseemly.

His Highness greeted them ceremoniously, and then:

'My honourable council, I have summoned you to announce my marriage to the Reichsgraefin Wilhelmine von Graevenitz, Countess of Urach, which was solemnised privately, though in all legal and religious form, a year ago.'

No one has ever known why his Highness told this useless untruth anent the date of his mock marriage, for he must have known that none would believe that, at least; besides, why tell an unnecessary lie?

'It is convenient to me to declare publicly my new alliance at this time, and I desire that the news shall be received by you and all my subjects in Wirtemberg, not only without comment, but with fitting expressions of content and with feasting and rejoicing. My late wife, the Princess Johanna Elizabetha of Baden-Durlach, I direct shall receive the honours and respect due to a Princess Dowager of Wirtemberg, and I appoint you to arrange with her Highness where she shall reside, provided it is not in or near my city of Stuttgart. The appanage I concede to the Princess Dowager Johanna Elizabetha is ten thousand gulden a year beside her own small marriage dowry. To my present legal wife, the Countess of Urach, I appoint royal honours and the castle of Urach as residence, in addition to such lodgings as it may please her to occupy in any other of my castles. She will receive an appanage of twenty-five thousand gulden a year. Gentlemen, you will take part in the festivities here to-day, and to-morrow I charge you to repair to Stuttgart and to acquaint the Duchess——' he corrected himself hastily, 'Princess Johanna Elizabetha with these facts.'

There was a moment's pause. The Geheimraethe looked at one another in consternation; this was an even more astounding declaration than they had dreamed his Highness could venture to make. Geheimrath von Hespen, a devoted adherent of the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha, came forward.

'Your Highness, I speak in the name of my colleagues. This thing you ask is impossible: law, religion, usage forbid. I solemnly adjure your Highness to refrain from——'

'Herr von Hespen, I have given you my commands. It remains for me to inform you of the penalty I impose upon such as are disobedient to me. All who refuse to carry out my instructions cease to be members of my Privy Council; those who venture to speak against me or my wife are guilty of treason. As I think you are aware, the punishment of treason is death.'

'Monseigneur the Prelate Osiander,' announced the page-in-waiting as he flung open the door of the Golden Hall. Eberhard Ludwig turned excitedly to greet the Prelate.

'Osiander,' he cried, 'you have come in time.'

'God grant I have, Serenissimus,' returned Osiander sternly.

'As a priest of God I pray you to tell these gentlemen that those whom God has joined together no man's power can put asunder!' cried his Highness.

'That is exactly what I have the duty to remind your Highness,' returned the Prelate. 'The Duchess Johanna Elizabetha, your wife——' Eberhard Ludwig started violently; he saw that he had blundered.

'I do not speak of my late wife, Monsieur le Prelat. She is no longer my wife! She who holds that position is Wilhelmine, Countess of Urach.'

'Impossible, Serenissimus, as long as the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha lives,' replied Osiander.

'By all the rites of the Church, by the law of God and man, I am truly wedded to the Countess of Urach!' the Duke answered passionately.

'As long as your Highness lives in mortal sin the Church denies you the Sacraments. I am the representative of the Church, your Highness, and in the presence of your Privy Council I pronounce this ban upon you,' said the Churchman severely.

'Let me remind you that there is another Church. Remember I am Pope in my land! If you of the Lutheran confession will not serve me, I will seek consolation in an older faith!' cried Eberhard Ludwig.

The Geheimraethe, huddled together in a whispering, wavering, frightened group, had listened to Osiander's grave words in silence, but at this speech of his Highness's they broke into agitated exclamations:

'His Highness does not know what he says! Roman idolatry! Ah! Monseigneur! It is contrary to the testament of Eberhard the Ancient and the true laws of Wirtemberg!'

Eberhard Ludwig paid no heed to these varied ejaculations of his Privy Councillors. He was watching Osiander's stern face, and his own expression was as unrelenting as the Prelate's.

'Is this your last word, Monsieur Osiander?' he said quietly.

'Yes, Monseigneur, my last word, and the decision of the Church which I represent.'

'Then, sir, I can dispense with your presence in my castle of Urach,' replied the Duke haughtily.

The Prelate withdrew without a word. Eberhard Ludwig waited till Osiander passed out of the Golden Hall, then: 'Gentlemen, you have heard. Now I require you to sign this document. Those who do not sign, cease to be members of my Privy Council.' He drew a large folded paper from his breast, and laying it open upon the table desired one of the Geheimraethe to read it aloud. It was a repetition in formal legal terms of his Highness's speech to the Council, and had been drawn up and cleverly worded by Schuetz, the fraudulent attorney of Vienna.

'Your Highness takes the entire responsibility of this act?' questioned one of the councillors.

'Yes, noble sirs, and I have but to add that such of you as do not sign will be arrested immediately.' He moved back a few paces, and pushing open the door revealed to the councillors a detachment of Silver Guards stationed in the corridor without. Seven Geheimraethe approached the table and without more ado affixed their signatures to the document. Only Herr von Hespen remained.

'I await your decision, sir,' said Serenissimus harshly.

'I shall not sign,' replied Hespen.

'Arrest this gentleman!' called the Prince; 'and now, sirs, we will repair to the tilting-hall and our banquet.'

The small town of Urach was in a state of such commotion as it had not known since the far-off day when Count Eberhard the Bearded received his Mantuan bride at the castle. All day coaches rolled into the courtyard of the old inn, and the narrow streets were filled with servants anxiously seeking lodgings for their masters. At every moment coaches drew up in the courtyard of the small hostelry and companies of fine gentlemen rode in. Every one demanded accommodation, and quarrels and protestations filled the air. In the streets hawkers called their wares, ribbons, laces, patches. A strolling vender of reputed wonder-working balsams and philtres attracted a laughing crowd; itinerant musicians arrived on the scene and added the strains of stringed instruments and the choruses of gay songs to the general clamour. Urach, the quiet hill-town, where many quaint fountains murmur ceaselessly, seemed turned into a place of carnival. Near the castle gate the crowd of peasants and burghers was dense, every one inquisitive to catch a glimpse of the gay doings within, but the sentries kept the people back and only the foremost watchers could see the interior of the courtyard. Here too was festive bustle, for his Highness sat at the grand banquet in the tilting-hall, and serving-men ran hurriedly across the courtyard bearing steaming viands from the kitchen or laden with platters of delicious cakes. The Duke's Cellar-master appeared in the gateway and, addressing the expectant mob, shouted the welcome statement that his Highness desired his friends of Urach to drink to his health. Barrels of wine were rolled across to the castle gate and the onlookers served with copious draughts. Then the Cellar-master called for silence, and, striking an attitude, he spoke:

'His Highness prays you to drink long life and happiness to his noble bride, the Countess of Urach. Come—Hoch! and again—Hoch!'

'Bride, indeed!' roared the crowd; 'harlot, you mean!' some said, but they drank greedily all the same.

Wilhelmine was waiting in the Golden Hall, and through the open casement she heard the comments of the rabble. 'Harlot, adulteress, witch,' she repeated slowly, as she listened to these epithets used by the men while they drank her health. She raged. 'Ah, you canaille!' she whispered, 'it was I ordered you that good red wine! Blood I will give you to drink another time, blood to choke you.' She drew back from her place near the window. 'But your hatred shall not mar my triumph to-night. God's curse on you, my husband's people!'

The Golden Hall was decked in white flowers, and at one end of the large room, twined and garlanded with roses, a dais had been raised, and two huge gilt chairs, the only ones in the apartment, had been placed on this platform. It looked like a throne of King and Queen, and Eberhard Ludwig himself had protested at this uncustomary assumption of a regal superiority over his guests. But Wilhelmine had silenced him with a look. She had pointed to Duke Eberhard's motto.

'Attempto,' she whispered; 'Prussia is a kingdom now, why not Wirtemberg?'

Now Prussia's advancement was an eyesore to South Germany, and Eberhard Ludwig's envious ambition was stirred.

'Attempto,' he murmured as he went to prepare to meet his Geheimraethe. The success of this seance we already know.

The moments dragged. From the window of the Golden Hall Wilhelmine could see the church clock's slow finger lagging from point to point. Below, the crowd was still drinking and shouting, and the hated woman shuddered when she thought what would be her fate were she at the mercy of that throng which celebrated her wedding festivities.

Coaches rumbled into the courtyard. Soon the Countess heard voices in the White Hall or music-room, where the guests had been requested to assemble, pending the reception in the Golden Hall by his Highness.

Wilhelmine hurried away to complete her preparations for what she intended to be one of the hours of triumph in her career.

She found Madame de Ruth and the maid Maria polishing the jewels she was to wear.

'Quick!' she cried, 'the guests arrive!'

'Yes, my dear,' said Madame de Ruth dryly, 'all Stuttgart is coming here, I am told. The virtuous indignation was not strong enough. Curiosity has brought every one to see what you do.'

'Give me all the jewels, Maria,' was Wilhelmine's only reply.

* * * * *

'Monseigneur le Duc de Wirtemberg et Madame la Comtesse d'Urach!' called Oberhofmarshall Count Graevenitz, striking his marshal's staff heavily upon the wooden floor of the corridor outside the Golden Hall. Then the doors flew open, and the new Oberhofmarshall proceeded to the middle of the hall where he repeated his staff-tapping and loud announcement. The guests drew back. 'Really! is she to come in procession like a queen?' 'Upon my soul, this is too much to swallow!' 'Quelle insolence!' One could hear these murmurs run through the assemblage; nevertheless the guests fell back obediently, making room for the solemn entry of his Highness.

'Is she beautiful, at least?' queried a gentleman who, having but recently returned from the army, had not yet seen the famous Graevenitzin.

'Pockmarked, and as tall as a grenadier,' said a spiteful voice—a woman's.

'She sings divinely,' said another voice.

'Her notes are very strong, if you mean that! She nearly breaks your ears,' replied the same voice.

Now the musicians struck up a stately measure, and two pages, of the Sittmann family, of course, appeared in the doorway walking backwards. Hofmarshall Graevenitz thundered with his baton upon the ground; it must be conceded he seemed to take fondly to the exercise of his new duties. And now Eberhard Ludwig was seen in the doorway. His Highness wore a magnificent costume of white brocade, relieved only by the broad ribands of several high orders, and on his breast the chain of Austria's Golden Fleece. Of a truth, Serenissimus looked a fine Prince, but all eyes were upon the tall figure beside him—the Mecklemburg Fraeulein, the Countess of Urach. Her underskirt was made of cloth of gold, rich and heavy; her huge paniers were of embroidered satin of the Graevenitz yellow, as it came to be called in after years; her corsage was yellow also, and from her shoulders fell the white brocade cloak lined and trimmed with ermine, which she had worn on the day of her secret marriage at the Neuhaus. Her breast was literally ablaze with jewels, and the pearls of Wirtemberg, which two hundred years before the Mantuan princess had brought as marriage dowry, hung in ropes round the favourite's neck. So splendid a vision had never met the eyes of the assembled company. The Duchess Johanna Elizabetha had worn these jewels, but they had somehow seemed to disappear in the awkward masses of her ill-chosen garments. You may imagine, however, that her Highness had given the gems unwillingly to Eberhard Ludwig's messenger charged to bring them forthwith to Urach.

Wilhelmine advanced slowly, led by his Highness. She bowed gravely to right and left. The guests were astounded, struck dumb by the huge presumption of the woman; some few returned her salute, others, bewildered and indignant, stared her blankly in the face. Serenissimus led her to the dais, and as she took her seat bowed profoundly over her hand. The pages gathered round the steps of the dais. Madame de Ruth took up her position beside this pseudo-Duchess's chair. Oberhofmarshall Graevenitz stood to the Duke's right, the Sittmann family ranged themselves in a circle near this mock throne. Schuetz, the fraudulent attorney, mighty fine in brown satin and gaily embroidered waistcoat, took a patronising and curious air as though, accustomed as he was to the ceremony of Vienna's court, he found himself much diverted by this provincial gathering.

Formal presentations began. The Countess of Urach had a gracious smile for each and all, and the guests found themselves in an unpleasant dilemma. It is so difficult to be disagreeable to a smiling woman without actually insulting her; and that would have been dangerous, for who could tell what the future might bring forth?

Thus the ball progressed right merrily, and Wilhelmine's triumph was complete. The formality of the entertainment wore off a little, and the company danced gaily. Wilhelmine did not dance after the first gavotte, whose stately measure she trod with Monseigneur de Zollern, but this was a solemn ceremony. For the rest, the Countess of Urach sat in her gilded chair and conversed with chosen courtiers who were led up to her by the Oberhofmarshall or by Madame de Ruth. It was noticeable how the men lingered near her, and the ladies' angry spite was increased thereby. His Highness danced much and often. He was justly celebrated as the finest, most graceful, most precise dancer of his day, and Stafforth—who compiled a ponderous, pompous memoir of Eberhard Ludwig's journey to England to the court of Queen Anne, and also to the court of France—has left it on record that 'they all stood surprised before my Prince's great agility and marvellous skill.'

So pavane followed gavotte and sarabande and the more modern minuet, and the ball was very brilliant and gay.

Late in the evening Schuetz, his Highness's own secretary, was called away.

'Affairs of State!' he said airily, but so loudly that many should hear him. A sudden presentiment knocked at Wilhelmine's heart: could this be some disastrous happening come to mar her triumph? She signed to Madame de Ruth.

'A cruel foreboding is over me, dear friend,' she whispered.

'Tut! child, what should it be? Come, forget it, enjoy your hour.'

'Alas! the best hours are always pursued by evil things!' replied Wilhelmine sadly. She turned to Reischach, who stood near her. 'Come and tell me a story of some gallant adventure, Baron! Now let us hear—you and a princess let it be, for I love the stories to which I am accustomed!' She smiled maliciously, but the laughter froze on her lips, for Schuetz was making his way towards her, and there was a look on his face which told her the foreboding had not erred.

'News from Vienna, Madame,' he said in a low voice when he reached her side.

'Tell me quickly what it is,' she whispered back.

'Imperial mandate to his Highness. I know no more; but the messengers are of rank, and have the Emperor's commands to read the decree to his Highness in person. I fear it is very serious for you.'

Eberhard Ludwig came up gaily. 'Come, Madame ma femme—come and tread a measure with me!' Wilhelmine rose obediently.

'Have the messengers shut into the White Hall, make no disturbance here,' she murmured as she passed Schuetz.

With smiling face and merry jest she danced the sarabande.

'And now, Monseigneur!' she cried in a ringing voice, when the dance concluded, 'let us end these revels, it grows late! I pray you command the lackeys to bring the Tokay that we may drink our loving-cup with our guests!'

The wine was brought and quickly given round.

'My gentle ladies and noble sirs!' called his Highness, 'I drink to your happiness; I pray you drink to mine!'

The guests raised their glasses, and it was only as they drank that they saw Eberhard Ludwig bowing before Wilhelmine, and they realised with dismay that they had toasted her under the title of 'his Highness's happiness.'



CHAPTER XIII

THE DUCHESS'S BLACK ROOMS

'In God's hands are all things. It is blasphemy to fear.'

THE Imperial decree was uncompromising: 'She leaves your court, this adventuress, or ill betide her. If you take a mistress, well and good—that is not in the power of Emperor to forbid; but you have infringed the Empire's laws by bigamy, Serenissimus, and this we will not tolerate. The lady must depart; if she goes not, the rigours of the law will crush her. No more of your mock marriage, no more of your sorry, sham court.'

Thus the gist of the document which shattered Wilhelmine's hopes and interrupted her triumph at Urach. But to relinquish her ambition thus easily, instantly to render obedience to Father Vienna, this was not to be expected from so potent a lady, nor indeed from Eberhard Ludwig, who, besides being deeply enamoured, judged his prerogative as an independent reigning Prince to be threatened by this summary command. Then, too, all the parasites of the mock court advised resistance; urged it in every way, for their own existence depended upon the Countess of Urach and the continuance of her royal retinue.

His Highness penned a private letter to the Emperor, in which he set forth many arguments and added passionate entreaties. In his reasoning he quoted historical examples of a Prince's right to discard a wife for causes of State necessity or convenience. Even Henry VIII. of England was held up as a pattern in this! One wonders whether the Emperor had sufficient historical learning to smile at this unfortunate reference.

Schuetz was despatched with this private missive and other intricate legal documents.

Meanwhile the life at Urach went its usual course: hunts, feasts, music, cards, love and laughter. Naturally those few members of the former Wirtemberg court who had suffered themselves to be drawn into the vortex of gaiety, now withdrew, and the Graevenitz circle grew to be more and more the refuge of the brilliant disreputable. Adventurers flocked in from all sides and, were they but entertaining, immediately became bright satellites revolving round the sun of Wilhelmine's magnificence. Of course, these personages were not welcomed by the older stars—the Sittmanns and company; but the favourite waxed more overbearing, more autocratic each day, and she permitted no censure of her will.

The Duchess Johanna Elizabetha was not idle; she had summoned her family from Baden-Durlach, and they were moving heaven and earth, or rather Vienna, in her cause.

Schuetz wrote that things were going badly for the Graevenitz: the Emperor was obdurate, the Privy Council was stern, and public opinion strong against the double marriage.

Johanna Elizabetha at this crisis fell ill—'of a colic,' said the court of Urach scornfully; 'of poison,' said Stuttgart, Baden-Durlach, finally Vienna. This was serious, wrote Schuetz. There were not wanting persons who hinted that other inconvenient wives had died of this same class of colic, and that the illness had been caused by the rival mistress. Eberhard Ludwig raged, Wilhelmine laughed, but Zollern looked grave, and spoke of the Prussian letter of royal protection, and of the beauty and safety of Schaffhausen.

Anger gave place to anxiety, when a private letter from the Emperor to Eberhard Ludwig arrived. It was really an unpleasant letter, and the court, to whom its contents were communicated, felt that it was the beginning of the end. His Majesty wrote that he gave Serenissimus one last chance of saving the lady of his heart. She must yield at once, or the law would proceed against her ruthlessly. The Emperor added that he had commissioned the Electors of Brunswick, Brunswick-Wolfenbuettel, and Hesse-Cassel to act as intermediaries in the matter. They were empowered to settle the dispute in his Majesty's name and in the interests of virtue, law, and order. Serenissimus was overwhelmed. He vowed he would abjure his allegiance to Austria, and as for the Protestant Church which had proved so inconveniently honest, that could go by the board and he would go over to Rome.

The Pope Clement XI. was unfriendly to Austria politically, and his Holiness would welcome the Duke of Wirtemberg to the fold. For the rest, Eberhard Ludwig talked wildly of approaching Louis XIV. and throwing in his lot and his army with his old adversaries. The Pope was indeed informed of the whole tangle, and had entered into secret negotiations with Zollern on the subject.

Hereupon Forstner reappeared, and by his reproaches, his tediousness, and his tactlessness nearly confirmed Serenissimus in his frantic decision. Then arrived Osiander. He was a man of great strength of character and intellect, and he succeeded in demonstrating to the Duke the dishonourable nature of his intentions. Also he induced his Highness to comprehend that the Pope, though ready to gather all men, and especially princes, into the maw of Rome, could not make a double marriage legal where there was no feasible plea for annulment of the first union. To be politically hostile to Austria was one thing, to enter into open combat with her another. Wirtemberg was not a large enough bribe in any case.

At this juncture arrived the Electorial ambassadors, and lengthy, tedious negotiations commenced. The deliberations seemed endless. Did the ambassadors believe their task to be nearing completion, the other side had always a fresh plea, a new quibble; and the winter was far advanced before these unfortunate envoys declared that they could do no more.

'We have proved the so-called marriage to be illegal,' they wrote to the Emperor; 'we have offered lands and moneys to the favourite; we have been conciliatory, then threatening, but Serenissimus is as one blinded, and the woman remains in her preposterous position. We can do no more, save humbly to recommend your Majesty to enforce the rigours of the law against this bigamous female.' So Brunswick Brunswick-Wolfenbuettel, and Hesse-Cassel retired discomfited.

On the other side, Schuetz in Vienna had made no headway. The mock court continued as before, sometimes at Urach, sometimes at Tuebingen or Wildbad. Stuttgart was deserted, save for the mournful presence of the unhappy Duchess.

The Countess of Urach's circle widened considerably, constantly enlarged by inquisitive travellers, and it was marvellous how many of these persons lingered and took root in the easy, evil soil of this unhallowed, unlawful court. The very servants were for the most part of doubtful character, and it is remarkable how successfully the Graevenitz ruled her strangely composed household. She had the power to win hearts when she chose, and she did choose where her domestics were concerned. Her method was based on the human point of view. 'If I take this rascal into my service and treat him well, he will respond by gratitude. At least, he will be bound to me and to my interests. Should he betray me I can punish him; but he is too disreputable for any one else to defend, therefore he is mine, my creature.' These theories she expounded to Madame de Ruth, never to Serenissimus. He, poor deluded one, thought his mistress a very charitable lady, and loved her the more for her kindness to sinners. Among this motley crew of her choosing was an Italian of the name of Ferrari, who had come to Tuebingen with a troupe of strolling actors.

In Tuebingen the man had fallen ill, and Wilhelmine, hearing through the maid Maria of the Italian's misery, caused him to be nursed back to life. Then, when the grateful rascal came to thank his benefactress, she took him into her service. The man proved himself useful; he was quick and intelligent, and conceived a dog-like affection for the Graevenitz, who rewarded him by employing him in any secret message she desired to be conveyed. He it was who procured for her the various ingredients she used in her magic brewings. He who spied upon the Duchess, for Wilhelmine had a morbid curiosity to know each action of the woman she injured. The people whispered that Ferrari instructed the Graevenitz in the mysterious and terrible secrets of Italian poisons. This gossip reached the ears of Johanna Elizabetha and she trembled, fearing poison in all she ate, in all she touched, in the petals of the roses of the castle garden, in the dust which lay on the road.

An ugly story leaked out. The Duchess's head cook, Glaser by name, recounted how Ferrari had visited him and offered him a purse of gold and a little phial which contained a greyish white powder. This, Ferrari had told him, was a rare medicine known in Italy alone; it would cause a barren woman to become fruitful. The Italian told Glaser that this precious physic was sent for her Highness Johanna Elizabetha by one who loved her well and would fain serve her. Glaser was desired to sprinkle it on the Duchess's food, but her Highness must be unaware of its presence, for such knowledge would destroy the medicine's efficacy. Glaser replied that he would willingly serve so noble and unfortunate a lady as Johanna Elizabetha, but he refused to take the responsibility of administering the powder. If, however, Ferrari first showed it to the court doctor, Schubart, Glaser would undertake to mix the stuff into some dish for her Highness. At mention of the physician, Ferrari disappeared and did not return. Then Glaser averred he had been set upon near the Judengasse one dark night, soon after Ferrari's visit. Two masked bravos attacked him from behind, and it was only by the chance passing of the town guard that he had escaped with his life. Her Highness heard this story and she smiled bitterly, knowing that her barren state proceeded from a very important omission, and that no powder could be efficacious. And who should know this better than the Graevenitz? the sender of this absurd powder, as the Duchess surmised. 'Poison!' said the Duchess, and despatched a broken-hearted letter to Vienna telling of her bodily peril.

The days lengthened, bright April came with the calling and rustling of Spring in all the air. There were mighty gay doings again at Urach, but Stuttgart held aloof. Things had gone too far; the story of the white powder had played the Graevenitz an evil turn, and people were genuinely horrified at her wickedness. Not a jot cared Wilhelmine. 'The Stuttgarters were such provincials, such shabby, heavy, rude louts,' said the lady from Guestrow. There were no festivities at the castle in Stuttgart. How should there be with the agonised, deserted woman as hostess?

It was her Highness's custom to pray and meditate in solitude for an hour when the day waned. She led a busy, if sedentary, life; sewing her eternal garments of coarse flannel for the poor while Madame de Stafforth read aloud from books of piety. A number of poor people came to the castle, and her Highness was ever ready—nay, eager, to listen to their tales of misery and to distribute alms to these her only courtiers. Then there were the legal reports of the learned doctors-at-law engaged upon her matrimonial business. Johanna Elizabetha welcomed the twilight hour's solitary musing. Poor soul! often she spent this hour on her knees, mourning her sorrow before God.

One evening towards the middle of April, the Duchess had withdrawn as usual to her own apartments leaving Madame de Stafforth in the chief salon reading a sermon by an eminent Swiss divine. The two ladies had felt strangely nervous and anxious during the afternoon, and several times it had seemed to her Highness that she heard stealthy footsteps on the inner gallery of the courtyard, but when she questioned the page-in-waiting whose duty it was to watch at the door of the ante-hall leading to her Highness's rooms, the youth replied that he had seen and heard nothing. The Duchess told herself she was becoming a fearsome, anxious old woman, and she endeavoured to smile down the haunting feeling of some unseen, creeping presence. Still it was with a sense of trepidation that she entered the small room where she was wont to meditate each evening when the day's wearisome, self-imposed labours were ended. This room lay beyond her Highness's sleeping chamber and had a small balcony looking over the Lustgarten.

This apartment was plainly furnished, almost monastic in its simplicity: one chair, a small bureau, a table on which lay a few books of sermons and volumes of theological treatises, and a praying-stool stood against the wall. The only thing recalling the vanities of the world was a mirror let into the panel above the praying-stool. Indeed, this mirror was a relic of one of poor Johanna Elizabetha's few happy hours. Eberhard Ludwig had ordered the whole room to be panelled with mirrors, having seen some such conceit in a chateau in France during his travels. He had thought to please her Highness by this attention, but the dull, awkward woman had forbidden the completion of the plan: it was a wrongful waste of money, she averred, and a French vanity! So Eberhard Ludwig had angrily commanded the workmen to desist, and, wounded and offended, he had reflected on his wife's lack of appreciation of the little elegancies of life. True, she had seemed pleased by his thought of her, she had thanked him—but she had declined his present!

The only alteration in the castle which Johanna Elizabetha had ever been known to order had been done, to the surprise of all, some time after the Duke's desertion of his wife and son. The entire suite of apartments which her Highness occupied had been redecorated. The panelling, which was of time-mellowed oak, the Duchess had caused to be painted black, the chairs and tables of her rooms were covered with black brocade, and the window curtains were fashioned of the same sombre material. It was a strange fancy, the exaggeration of a brain strung up, taut and strained to a quivering line on the border of insanity. Yet the Duchess was not mad, only sad to desperation, utterly humiliated, shuddering with despair and shame. Possibly the unhappy woman, shut into the silence of her dumb personality, had here sought to give expression to her voiceless agony.

The effect of these black walls, black furniture, black hangings, was odiously funereal. Some one said that her Highness should complete the picture of mourning by donning the sinister trappings of the Swabian widow—the bound brow, the nunlike hood, the swathing band with which South German widows of mediaeval times hid their lips from the sight of all men, in token of their bereavement and enforced chastity.

Her Highness looked anxiously round her sleeping apartment as she passed through. To her overstrung nerves each darker shadow held an evil menace. A breeze crept in through the open casement, and swayed the heavy black curtains round her Highness's bed, and she started back, thinking that some hostile hand had moved the folds. In vain she told herself how baseless were her fears. She chid herself for a craven, but her heart still fluttered fearfully, and her lips were a-tremble when she reached the little room. She sank down in her chair with a sigh of relief. Here in this little room, she reasoned, there could be nothing to fear; here were no shadowy corners where a lurking enemy might hide.

'O God! O God!' she wailed suddenly aloud, 'am I going mad that I should tremble at a gust of wind, that I should suffer this insane consciousness of some haunting presence near me when I know I am, in truth, alone and safe?' She covered her face with her hands.

'Your Highness,' came a voice, and the unhappy woman started to her feet in renewed alarm—'Your Highness, have I permission to depart now? Monsieur de Stafforth wishes me to assist at a supper he gives this evening. As your Highness knows, my husband is very harsh to me since the Duke dismissed him, and indeed I dare not be late.'

It was Madame de Stafforth who, having finished reading, had come to take leave of the Duchess.

'Alas!' said her Highness sadly, 'I am not permitted to bear my sorrow alone; my friends must suffer also.'

'Ah! Madame,' said the little moth-coloured woman tenderly, 'we would all suffer joyfully, could we ease your Highness; but think, Madame! you, at least, have one great happiness: to all women it is not given to bear a son, and the Erbprinz grows stronger each day.'

Poor little Madame de Stafforth! The tragedy of her life lay in her words. She was childless; and Stafforth reproached her—nay, taunted her daily with this, for he desired an heir to carry on his new nobility.

'Forgive me, dear friend; indeed I am blessed. And my son grows stronger, you really think?'

Johanna Elizabeth's face lit with a mother's tenderness, and the two ladies plunged into a detailed discourse on the Erbprinz's health. At length Madame de Stafforth took her leave.

'Shall I send any one to your Highness?' she asked as she reached the door.

The Duchess's terrors had been allayed by the familiar discussion of the Erbprinz's ailments, but a thrill of nameless fear passed through her when she remembered she would be alone again in her sombre apartment. But this was weakness! What had she read in the Swiss sermon? 'In the hands of God are all things. It is blasphemy to fear darkness, solitude, or the evil machinations of men. All is in the Great Grasp, and each happening is made and directed by God.' The solemn words came back to her now.

'Dear Madame de Stafforth, I can ring when I wish for any one. Good night, and God bless you!' she said, and laid her hand upon the small silver hand-bell which was on the bureau near her.

When the sound of Madame de Stafforth's footsteps ceased, her Highness turned to the books on the table and sought the volume of Swiss sermons; but it was not there; evidently Madame de Stafforth had forgotten to bring it from the salon. The Duchess decided to fetch it, but she lingered a moment, for it was unaccountably disagreeable to her to pass through the half-light of her sleeping apartment.

'In the hands of God are all things!' she murmured, and with firm step she moved towards the sombre chamber. Once more she thought she saw the bed-curtains sway; she fancied she heard a movement behind her. 'It is blasphemy to fear,' she said, but she felt her brow moisten with the sweat of terror.

She found the book, and resolutely re-entered the sleeping-room. She would not allow her eyes to wander to the bed-hangings, nor to search the dusky corners of the chamber. She passed on, and, gaining the little study, laid the book open on the table, and, leaning her head on her hands, began to read; but she could not fix her attention on the page before her. She was tortured by faint stirrings, by scarcely perceptible sounds, by an eerie feeling of some lurking presence always behind her.

At length she could bear it no longer. She closed the book and rose, intending to ring the hand-bell and summon her attendants, but the words of the sermon echoed in her brain: 'It is blasphemy to fear,' and she felt ashamed of her impulse. She turned, and, going to the praying-stool, kneeled in prayer.

'Give me strength, O God! to resist this baseless terror,' she prayed. 'In thy hands are all things!' Yet her anxiety was unsoothed, and the dread of madness came to her, but with it grew a brave defiance: she would not go mad, she would not! She saw herself a prisoner in some castle, kept alive and well treated, perhaps, but a piteous object, a thing for all to point at—'the mad Duchess!' And the Graevenitz at Stuttgart a legal Duchess. She believed a Prince could put away an insane wife. 'Not madness, kind Jesus!' she prayed. Her heart was wrung in agony as she pictured her son, the Erbprinz, taunted perhaps by the mention of his mother's madness. 'All is in the Great Grasp, and each happening is made and directed by God.' 'O Christ,' she prayed, 'I believe, I trust, I will not blaspheme by fear; no madness can strike me down while I believe and pray.' She lifted her hot face from her hands, calmed, soothed, brave once more. She was rising from her knees, and the movement brought her eyes on a level with the mirror panel. As one turned to stone, she stood looking into the mirror, for it reflected one corner of her bed in the next room, and the fading light fell on something white which pushed aside the black brocade bed-curtain—a large yellow-white hand holding a small gleaming knife. The Duchess, still with the dread of insanity upon her, told herself that it was an hallucination, a delusion, the frenzied working of her overwrought brain. She gathered her courage and fixed her eyes on the mirror, which showed her what she conceived to be a phantom. The hand was large, with hair growing hideously over it, and jagged, bitten nails—she could see this distinctly, for the light fell from the window full on the black curtain, and showed up the yellow hand. Fascinated, she gazed into the mirror, wondering the while why, now that the horror actually confronted her, she felt so little fear, whereas before she had started and trembled at each gust of wind. Now the hand emerged further from out the hangings. An arm in a brown sleeve appeared. Then the curtains parted, and her Highness saw a ferret-like face appear. She knew that this was no phantom. Swiftly she calculated the distance between her and the hand-bell. She remembered that only her tiring-maid would come in answer to the usual daily summons. If this man was indeed an assassin, he would do his work immediately; kill her ere the woman could come, and the unsuspecting maid herself might easily be silenced with one stab from that pointed dagger. All this the Duchess realised in a flash. She had never thought so rapidly in her life. No! she must not ring; she must dupe the murderer! Her eyes met the assassin's in the mirror, but she had the strength to return the gaze in an abstracted fashion, so that the man should be uncertain whether she had seen him, or whether the mirror had failed, by some strange chance, to transmit his reflection. Instinctively she felt that her death-warrant would be signed did the man know her to be aware of his presence. She moved towards the table; thus she was out of the mirror's range, and she therefore could not see what the man was doing in the adjoining apartment. 'Dupe him! escape by ruse! get out of the rooms to the ante-hall, let him think I am coming back!' Dully this thought struggled in her mind. With extraordinary calmness she commenced to move the books on the table, purposely rustling the pages. Then suddenly she knew her only way of escape.

'Curious!' she said aloud; 'I thought my other book was here. I have left it next door. I must find it and return to read and rest.' As she said the words she walked into the sleeping-room. 'God give me strength not to look towards the bed,' she prayed silently. 'Lord, in thy hands are all things. It is blasphemy to fear.'

Now she was in the shadowy bedroom; she moved slowly across, saying again aloud: 'I will fetch the volume and return.' As the words left her lips she realised she had spoken in French; her ruse was useless then! The murderer was probably some illiterate scoundrel; how should he comprehend? But her dogged, methodical nature stood her in good stead. If Johanna Elizabetha began anything, she invariably completed her task; so although she imagined her strategy spoiled through her use of the French language, she kept steadily moving across the large dark room. As she gained the door leading to the audience-chamber she heard the man's bitten, jagged nails scrape the silk brocade of the hangings. He had pushed aside the curtains, then—he was following her! 'God give me strength,' she prayed again. With unhurried step she passed across the whole length of the long audience-chamber, and gently opened the door of the ante-hall. The page-in-waiting, a slight child of fourteen years, sprang to his feet, bowing deeply, as her Highness entered.

'Are you alone?' said the Duchess quietly. 'Is no lackey in waiting?'

'No, your Highness; I have had the honour to guard your Highness alone for the last few minutes. There is no one else at all,' the boy replied, proud of the trust reposed in him.

'I cannot give up this child to the assassin's dagger,' thought the Duchess.

To her strained hearing there seemed to be a creeping movement behind her. Quickly she pulled the key from the lock on the inner door of the audience-chamber, and with trembling hand fitted it into the keyhole on the ante-hall side.

'Quick, boy! fasten the other door leading to my apartment!' she whispered.

The youth ran forward to do her bidding, and as she heard the bolt fall under his hand she succeeded in turning the key in the lock noiselessly.

'Call the guard! Quick! quick!'

Instantly the page rushed off, and once more Johanna Elizabetha was alone with the owner of that yellow, hairy hand, but with a bolted door between her and death this time. Still she held the door-handle firmly, and she felt it being gently tried from inside. Then she heard distinctly stealthy footsteps stealing away across the audience-chamber.

The guard clattered into the ante-hall—fifty men in yellow and silver uniforms, with drawn swords, and pistols showing grimly at their sides. The captain of the guard inquired her Highness's pleasure. The page had summoned him, saying her Highness was in danger of her life.

'Yes,' said Johanna Elizabetha shortly, 'assassination. Search my apartments, the doors are locked.'

The men poured in: some straight through the audience-chamber, others through the narrow corridor leading round at the back of the Duchess's sleeping apartment. In a short time the captain returned.

'We have found no one, your Highness; yet I have left my men to search again, though in truth we have inspected every inch of all the rooms.'

He looked at Johanna Elizabetha curiously as he spoke. Did he guess her mad? She felt guilty, suspected. Could that horrid vision, that creeping, lurking man, have been a phantom? A thing, then, of her own creation, not a ghost of the castle—no, a spectre of her own!

'You cannot have searched everywhere,' she said. 'There are no ghosts in the castle save the White Lady, and I saw a man skulking in my apartments.'

'Your Highness, the search has——,' he began.

'I will direct your men, Monsieur,' she interrupted hurriedly, and entered the audience-chamber. Carefully the soldiers went through the rooms again, probing each dark corner and under the hangings with their swords, but no one was to be found. The sweat stood on her Highness's brow. She knew she would give all she possessed for the man to be discovered. If he were not, she knew that she must become insane—nay, she would be proved already mad to her own knowledge.

Suddenly a shout went up from the soldiers who had penetrated to her Highness's praying-room, which, owing to its bareness and small size, had received at first but a cursory glance from the searchers.

Against the balustrade in the angle of the small balcony the murderer crouched. The soldiers dragged him forward and flung him, an unresisting, trembling heap, on to the middle of the floor. Her Highness hearing the commotion hurried forward.

'You have found him, then? Oh, thank God!' she cried.

'Pardon, pardon, by your mother's heart, I implore!' moaned the miserable wretch, dragging himself like a crawling, wriggling animal towards the Duchess. He was immediately hauled back by the soldiers.

'Stand up, you worm, and give account of yourself,' said the captain sternly, bestowing a kick on the man's ribs.

'I meant no harm! By Christ! I meant no harm!' the prisoner wailed.

'How came you in her Highness's apartments? Speak!'

'I am a stranger in Stuttgart,' replied the man.

'Here's a lie for you,' broke in a trooper; 'he's the Graevenitz's private servant. I have often seen him at Tuebingen.'

'Yes! yes! yes! I am the Comtesse d'Urach's secretary; but I return to Italy soon, and I wished to see the Duchess's famous black rooms before I left! Curiosity has been my undoing! Pardon! pardon!'

'If you only wanted to see my rooms,' said her Highness gently, 'why did you hide from me beneath the hangings? Why had you a poignard in your hand?'

'I had no poignard! By the Mother of God! I had no poignard,' he whined.

'It is in his girdle, your Highness,' said the trooper, drawing forth the dagger from the man's belt.

'I had a poignard in my girdle, but I meant no harm! I meant no harm! Madame, you cannot think I would have hurt you? Oh, mercy! mercy!' Once more he threw himself at the Duchess's feet. 'I hid indeed. O Madame! I feared your displeasure. Have mercy on me! I only wished to see your beautiful black rooms before I went back to Italy. When your Highness spoke of fetching the book——' The Duchess started. Of course the man was an Italian, and he understood French; that was how her plan had not miscarried, as she feared it had, when she thought her adversary was some local cut-throat—'when your Highness spoke, I thought I might escape while your Highness was away, and then the doors were bolted and the guard came. Oh, mercy!'

'Poor soul, let him go,' said Johanna Elizabetha gently.

'Your Highness, he shall go—to prison, till he is hanged. My man here tells me he is the person who gave poison to Kitchenmaster Glaser to sprinkle in your Highness's food,' the captain answered.

'Alas! how evil are men's hearts,' sighed the Duchess. 'Take him, then, but treat him gently. He says he meant no harm.'



CHAPTER XIV

THE SECOND MARRIAGE

THE news of the discovery of Ferrari in her Highness's apartments spread through Stuttgart during the evening, and there arose a wave of intense indignation. The Graevenitz was loudly denounced as the instigator of the attempted crime, and a mob gathered before the Jaegerhaus, clamouring in their fierce, blind rage to destroy the house where the hated woman had resided. The riot grew so serious that it was necessary to call out the town guard, and though the knot of violent rioters was easily dispersed by the soldiers, still during the whole night Stuttgart continued in an uproar, and fears of a dangerous disturbance were entertained.

Messengers sped away to Urach, carrying the news of Ferrari's attempt and exaggerated reports of the unquiet state of the town.

Early on the following morning Forstner, who resided for the most part at Stuttgart, finding the Graevenitz court little to his liking, arrived at Urach, and pleading urgent private business was immediately admitted to his Highness's audience-chamber.

Wilhelmine from her powdering-closet could hear Forstner's deep voice, but, though she much desired it, she could not distinguish the words. Once she caught the name 'Ferrari,' and then again 'her Highness.' Could it be the old story of Glaser and the white powder? she wondered. Impatiently she tapped her foot on the ground. She called Maria and inquired if Ferrari was in the castle. She was told he had left Urach early on the preceding morning and had not been seen since. Wilhelmine grew anxious at this. It struck her disagreeably that the absent Italian should be the subject of Forstner's early visit. Ferrari had been strangely gloomy and preoccupied of late, she had remarked. Indeed, he had brooded in this fashion ever since the Glaser affair. True, Wilhelmine had taunted him cruelly with his failure, and the man always took her lightest word to heart. He had conceived an affection for her which was a trifle inconvenient—a jealous, fierce affection made grotesque by his ugly, undersized person.

Eberhard Ludwig entered the powdering closet. His face was deadly pale, and his eyes held a look of horror and disgust which warned Wilhelmine of some grave occurrence.

'I have news of serious import, Madame,' he said coldly; 'kindly dismiss your serving-woman. I wish to speak to you in private.'

Maria left the room with a sniff; she was accustomed to better treatment. In fact, she bade fair to become a tyrant to her lenient mistress.

'Mon Prince!' cried Wilhelmine as the woman disappeared, 'whatever the news, you seem to show me an ugly frown. I, at least, cannot have displeased my beloved master, for I have not left his side, and our commune together cannot have given him offence.' She spoke lightly, but she watched his Highness's stern face anxiously. It softened at her words.

'Ah, Wilhelmine, beloved, a terrible thing has happened! And you are gravely accused.' Then he poured forth the whole story of Ferrari's attempt. Wilhelmine listened in silence; she knew that his accusation was extremely serious, and the facts most difficult to explain away. To her consternation she saw that his Highness himself half suspected her of having a hand in the matter.

'Every criminal is allowed to answer his accuser,' she said, when Eberhard Ludwig finished his narration. He started forward.

'Accuser! Wilhelmine, am I your accuser? Do you think I doubt you? but, O God! the facts are black against you.'

'Your words do not accuse me, Eberhard,' she answered; 'but your eyes and the stern soul behind them accuse me. Nay, listen; how often have you praised me, calling me a woman of much intelligence? Now, I ask you, consider for a moment how a woman, gifted with even a spark of this same intelligence, could act so foolishly as to have her declared enemy, the obstacle to her happiness, removed by the poignard of a servant well known to be in her employ? That is one plea I would put forward, Monseigneur. Then again, should I select the moment to contrive her Highness's death when the world is ringing with that preposterous Glaser story? I am branded as a bigamist,' she added bitterly; 'do you fancy I wish to add the title murderess to my name?'

'But explain the circumstance of your servant being discovered, poignard in hand, lurking in the Princess Johanna Elizabetha's rooms. And oh! Wilhelmine, forgive me; but this preposterous Glaser story, as you call it, has never been properly explained. You have laughed, and I have put the matter out of my thoughts; but now—O beloved! it is so terrible to doubt you, but——'

Wilhelmine was unprepared for this retrospective attack. She hesitated, and his Highness's face grew dark.

'I really must ask you to explain,' he said harshly, moving away from her.

'Eberhard,' she said brokenly, 'I sent the powder to the Duchess.'

Serenissimus started forward. 'You confess? O my God!' he cried.

'Yes; I will tell you. The powder was a harmless philtre. I brewed a magic draught which causes whoever drinks it to forget the being they love, and become enamoured of the first person they see. O Eberhard, believe me!'

'Fairy tales!' he almost laughed. 'But why given in secret? why given at all?' he demanded.

'If she forgot you, forgot your charm, beloved, she would be happy again. I had pity on her!'

It was poison she had sent, and even to herself her story seemed too extravagant for credence. To her surprise, however, his Highness believed her in this.

'Well, and for the rest? for Ferrari's being hidden in the castle?' he questioned.

'Call Maria and ask her if I was aware that the madman had left Urach. She can vouch that I thought him to be here.'

'Why did he do this thing?' said the Duke.

'What explanation did he offer?' she queried hurriedly.

'That he wished to see the black rooms!' he replied.

'Well, but surely that is explanation enough? You know the man's extraordinary love of beauty, his curious seeking for unusual furniture. He is mad, Eberhard; I tell you he is mad! We must save him from prison and send him back to Italy.' She spoke so naturally, so easily, that his Highness felt that sense of the unaccustomed, the unknown evil, the grim suspicion of crime fall away, and an immense relief take its place.

'Of course, of course!' he said hurriedly; 'I was frightened by that fool Forstner. Forgive me for my insane suspicion.' And he hastened away to assure Forstner of the sheer absurdity of this accusation.

Perhaps he would have been a trifle shaken in his confidence had he seen Wilhelmine fall back in her chair, breathing hard like some wild animal who had escaped the hunter's knife by a hair's-breadth.

* * * * *

If Serenissimus was thus easily appeased, the authorities and citizens of Stuttgart were not to be put off with a mere tale. Also Johanna Elizabetha's friends and partisans were loud in their accusations of the Graevenitz. Ferrari had been released from prison by the Duke's command. The man was mad, his Highness averred, and it was but merciful to send him back to Italy. It leaked out that the Italian had left Wirtemberg, but it was whispered that he carried a large sum of gold with him.

'Blood money,' said the Stuttgarters, and their indignation grew apace. Schuetz wrote from Vienna that things were going badly for the Graevenitz. The Emperor had been informed of the Ferrari affair, and was reported to have expressed his opinion in no measured terms. In fact, Schuetz strongly advised the Countess of Urach to leave Wirtemberg for a time, but the lady remained firm. 'Go, I will not, until I am obliged, and that is not yet,' she declared.

So the days passed as usual at Urach, outwardly. The Duke shot roebuck daily in the early morning, the Countess often accompanying him. Later, Serenissimus would ride young and fiery horses; but in this the Countess did not take part, she was but a poor horsewoman. Then came a delicious banquet, with the Countess of Urach's musicians in attendance discoursing fair melodies.

During the afternoon his Highness drove eight, ten, and sometimes twelve horses together, thundering through the country, and the peasants soon learnt to associate their heretofore beloved ruler with clouds of dust and ruthless speed. A demon driver rushing past, who, they said, would crush them were they not quick to fly to safety in their houses or fields.

A demon driver with a beautiful, haughty-faced woman beside him. Verily an appalling picture to the sleepy Swabian peasant accustomed to the heavy swaying motion of quiet oxen or laborious cart-horses.

Each evening at the castle of Urach there were merry doings: dancing, cards, and music. It all seemed gay and secure enough, but there was unrest beneath this outward peace, an anxious feeling in the revellers' hearts. Madame de Ruth chattered wittily; Zollern, gallant and wise, made subtle ironic speeches; Wilhelmine sang, Serenissimus adored, the Sittmanns and the parasites were chorus to this—a chorus a little out of tune at times, perchance, but passable.

At length the imperial ultimatum arrived, and, like a card house blown by a strong man's breath, the sham court fell, and the Queen of Hearts knew that the game was played out.

'Wilhelmine, Countess Graevenitz, masquerading under the title of Countess of Urach, is hereby declared an exile from all countries under our suzerainty, nor can she hold property in these aforementioned countries, nor call for the law's protection. From the date of this writing she is given six days wherein to leave Wirtemberg. After the expiration of this term she must, an she remaineth in the land, stand her trial for bigamy, treason, and implication in attempted murder.'—Signed and sealed by the Emperor this.

There was no possible gainsaying; already the time allotted to her for flight was exceeded, and at any moment she might be arrested by the imperial order.

She fled to Schaffhausen once more, and in Stuttgart there was great rejoicing; but the joy was dashed to the ground when the news came that Serenissimus had also disappeared. Had he fled with his evil mistress, then? It was positively averred, however, that she had gone alone with Madame de Ruth. Witchcraft, of course! The Graevenitzin had bewitched herself once before when she had disappeared for three days from the old castle. His Highness himself had said openly that she had returned to him in a flash of lightning. What more likely than that she should have spirited Serenissimus away with her to Switzerland?

'Nonsense,' said the Duchess-mother at Stetten; 'Eberhard is roaming in the woods, crying to the trees that he is a broken-hearted martyr!' And she hurried to Urach, taking up her abode in the very apartments which Wilhelmine had just vacated. It is on record that her maternal Highness caused the rooms to be swept and garnished, ere she entered, as though they were infected with the pest. 'So they are,' quoth this plain-speaking dame, 'with the pest of vice!'

It is to be supposed that the Duchess-mother was right in her surmise regarding her son's forest wanderings, for a messenger arrived from Urach saying Serenissimus would re-enter Stuttgart with his mother in a few days' time; which he did, and was solemnly and publicly reconciled to the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha. The grateful burghers voted their Duke a free present of forty thousand gulden on his return, and to his Duchess ten thousand gulden.

The Duchess-mother is reported to have remarked that, of a truth, it had been fitting had they paid her back a portion of the war indemnity. 'But it does not matter,' she said, 'so long as that absurd boy, my son Eberhard, remains at his duties in future.' Dear, proud, sensible old lady! God rest her well! To her mother's heart, the thirty-seven-year-old Duke of Wirtemberg, hero, traveller, incidentally bigamist, remained eternally 'that absurd boy, my son.'

* * * * *

It was with mingled feelings that Wilhelmine at Schaffhausen heard of Eberhard Ludwig's reconciliation with his wife. Anger and scorn of the man's weakness predominated, but despair and humiliation tortured her as well, and a profound discouragement, which the sound of the rushing, foaming Rhine falls had no power to sooth this time. The enforced inaction was terrible to her. It was her strategy to leave his Highness's passionate letters of excuse and explanation unanswered, and thus she had little wherewith to fill the long summer days. Madame de Ruth was a delightful companion, but Wilhelmine was unresponsive and seemed absorbed in some intricate calculation. She would sit for hours, brooding sombrely. Her eyes, narrowed and serpent-like, gazed at the rushing waters, but when Madame de Ruth remarked on the beauty of the scene she would answer irritably that she was occupied, and only begged for quiet in which to think. Towards the middle of August Schuetz arrived from Vienna. He brought with him a document which he prayed Wilhelmine to consider, and to sign if she approved. It was entitled 'Revers de Wilhelmine, Comtesse Graevenitz,' and set forth that she undertook to relinquish all claims upon the Duke of Wirtemberg and his heirs forever. That she recognised any child, born of her relationship to his Highness, to be a bastard, and that she undertook never to return to the court of Wirtemberg. If she bound herself to these conditions, the Emperor, in return, promised to cancel her exile from his fiefs with the sole exception of Wirtemberg. The right to hold property would be given back to her, and she would be released from suspicion of murderous intent. His Majesty even promised her twenty thousand gulden as compensation for any wrong done to her in Wirtemberg.

Wilhelmine hesitated, pondered, and finally despatched Schuetz to Stuttgart with a copy of the imperial document. He laid it before the Privy Council, and stated that his client, the Countess Graevenitz, was prepared to accept these proposals, on the condition that Wirtemberg paid her a further sum in compensation for her loss of honour, property, and prospects.

The Privy Council fell into the trap. Anything to be finally rid of the dangerous woman, done with the whole noisome story. They had the example of Moempelgard before them, and they feared for Wirtemberg to be involved in a similar tangle.

Now Moempelgard, or Montbeliard, as the French-speaking court named it, was a small principality ruled by Eberhard Ludwig's cousin, Duke Leopold Eberhard of Wirtemberg, a liegeman of Louis XIV. of France, and a man of strange notions. He had been reared in the religion of Mahomet, and with the faith he held the customs of Islam. Thus he had married three women at once, legally, as he averred; and in any case, the three wives lived in splendour at Moempelgard's castle. These ladies had had issue, and the succession to the Moempelgard honours was complicated.

Naturally Stuttgart's Geheimraethe, with this cousinly example in their minds, longed for the Graevenitz to renounce all future claims upon the Dukedom of Wirtemberg, both for herself and for any issue of her 'marriage' with Eberhard Ludwig.

Thus when Schuetz conveyed her demand for money as a condition to her renouncement, they listened to the preposterous request, and declared themselves ready to pay the favourite compensation. Schuetz returned to Schaffhausen with this news, and was immediately re-despatched to Stuttgart with a demand for two hundred thousand gulden as the price of her renouncement.

The Geheimraethe were aghast. Twenty thousand, nay, even forty thousand, gulden they would pay, but two hundred thousand! This vast sum to be wrung out of the war-impoverished land! Impossible! Besides, it was as much as the marriage-portion of six princesses of Wirtemberg.

The Duke was approached. He retorted that the Countess of Graevenitz was perfectly justified in any demand she chose to make. The Duchess-mother arrived, and spoke, as usual, plainly to her son; but he had not forgotten how his mother had dragged him, like a repentant school-child, from Urach to be reconciled to Johanna Elizabetha. He owed the Duchess-mother a grudge, and paid it by remaining firm concerning the justice of Wilhelmine's claim.

The Privy Council offered her twenty thousand gulden. Then forty thousand. Both sums were refused. 'Two hundred thousand or nothing,' she answered. So the negotiations were broken off.

Meanwhile, had the Geheimraethe but known it, the 'Revers' had long been signed, sealed, and despatched to Vienna.

Wilhelmine again sent Schuetz to Stuttgart with the message that, as she had not been given just and fair compensation, she would know how, at a future date, to wring out from Wirtemberg a hundred times the modest sum refused her.

The Geheimraethe, thinking their foe vanquished and the affair at an end, laughed at this threat. They would have trembled had they known that the Graevenitz had a plan, and that their Duke was cognisant of the whole matter.

* * * * *

Wilhelmine, gazing at the waters of the Rhine with her half-closed, serpent-like eyes, sought for some device which should enable her to return to Stuttgart. In the first place, she loved power; in the second, she loved Eberhard Ludwig; in the third, she yearned to outwit her enemy Johanna Elizabetha and her opposers generally. Then she longed once more to defy the Duchess-mother, whom she, at the same time, greatly dreaded.

By this you will see that Wilhelmine was no longer merely the gay, charming, if scheming woman who had come to Wirtemberg sixteen months before. She had developed. Her extraordinary prosperity had poisoned her being. She had grown hard. Could she not achieve the height of power by one road, very well, she was ready to climb back by any circuitous path she could find. For many days her ingenuity and her searchings failed to show her any way back to Stuttgart. It was the pretext for returning which she sought; once there she knew she could grasp power again, and this time she intended to retain it. A chance speech of Madame de Ruth's set her on the track.

'Ah! my dear, we have gone too far; it is perilous to stand on the top of the hill; better to remain near the summit, indeed, but on some sheltered ledge whence we cannot be toppled over. Had I had my way, you should have married some high court dignitary, and as his wife you could have ruled undisturbed.'

'Can the wife of a court dignitary not be forbidden the court?' said Wilhelmine idly.

'Naturally, my dear! The Emperor cannot order an official of a German state to remove his wife from the court where he is employed.'

'Only the prince's wedded wife can be exiled, then?' said Wilhelmine sneeringly.

'My dear! we climbed too high, alas!' Madame de Ruth replied.

Her words had started Wilhelmine on a new track of thought. Married to a courtier holding high office at court, she could return and resume her career. But that would declare her marriage with Eberhard Ludwig to be a farce, she reflected. Still, if this were the only way? In her mental vision she reviewed each courtier, but she could find none fitting for the position of husband in name. Schuetz perhaps? She laughed at the very idea. No; the bridegroom must be a man of much breeding and no morals.

She wrote to Schuetz requesting him to journey to Schaffhausen on important business. The attorney arrived, and Wilhelmine observed how shabby was his coat, how rusty his general appearance. He was again the pettifogging lawyer in poor circumstances, and Wilhelmine reflected that he would be all the more anxious to serve her in order to return to his ill-gotten splendour at her illegitimate court.

Schuetz responded eagerly to her proposal. He acclaimed her a marvel of intelligence, and assured her that in Vienna he would be able to find the very article—a ruined nobleman ready to sell his name to any bidder.

On the day following Schuetz's advent at Schaffhausen, Wilhelmine was surprised by a visit from her brother Friedrich, who arrived in a deeply injured mood. Since Wilhelmine left Urach, he averred, he had been treated in a manner all unfitting for an Oberhofmarshall, and the head of the noble family of Graevenitz. Serenissimus had paid him scant attention, and Stafforth had been reinstated as Hofmarshall to the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha—a brand new dignity, complained this Oberhofmarshall of a sham court. He made himself mighty disagreeable to his sister, varying his behaviour by outbursts of despair and noisy self-pity, which would have been laughable had they not been so loud, violent, and disturbing. Wilhelmine informed him of her plan, and after many expressions of disapproval, when she had made it clear to him that it would be entirely to his advantage if she succeeded in her design, he gave the ugly plan his brotherly blessing and his sanction as head of the family.

Hereupon Schuetz returned to Vienna to seek a bridegroom. In an astonishingly short time, he wrote that he had found an admirably adapted person in the Count Joseph Maria Aloysius Nepomuk von Wuerben, a gentleman of very old lineage, and ex-owner of a dozen castles in Bohemia, all of which, however, had gradually been converted into gulden, and the gold pieces, in their turn, had vanished into the recollection of many lost card games. This personage, owing to his sad misfortunes, found himself at the age of sixty inhabiting a garret in Vienna.

Schuetz wrote that he knew Monsieur le Comte well. They met constantly at the eating-house. He further assured her that Wuerben was a very pleasant companion. Wilhelmine replied that it was profoundly indifferent to her whether her future husband was an agreeable companion or not, as she intended only to see him once—viz., at her own marriage, after which ceremony he could follow his namesake St. Nepomuk into the waves of the Moldau, for aught she cared! It angered her that Schuetz wrote concerning Wuerben, as though he were in truth to be the companion of her life, and she winced under a new note of familiarity which had crept into the attorney's tone.

Friedrich Graevenitz, who had taken up his abode in Wilhelmine's house at Schaffhausen, made matters worse by what he conceived to be witty and subtle pleasantries. He was never done with his allusions to 'mon cher futur beau frere a Vienne,' and he playfully called his sister 'la petite fiancee.'

On a golden evening of late September, Wuerben, accompanied by Schuetz, arrived at Schaffhausen. Wilhelmine and Madame de Ruth saw the coach crawling up the steep incline which led to the little castle that Zollern had given to the favourite. With difficulty Madame de Ruth had induced Wilhelmine to offer her future husband one day's hospitality. The wedding was fixed for the morning after Wuerben's arrival, and the bridegroom had agreed to return to Vienna immediately after the ceremony.

'I have the honour to present to you Monsieur le Comte de Wuerben!' said Schuetz, as he ushered in the noble Bohemian. Wuerben bowed to the ground, and Wilhelmine and Madame de Ruth bent in grand courtesies.

'Delighted to see you, mon cher! Welcome to our family!' cried Friedrich Graevenitz ostentatiously, departing entirely from the ceremonious code of those days, which hardly permitted the nearest friends to greet each other in this informal manner. But Friedrich Graevenitz prided himself on his friendliness and geniality, and, like most genial persons, he constantly floundered into tactlessness and vulgarity. On this occasion his misplaced affability was received with undisguised disapproval. Madame de Ruth tapped him on the arm with her fan; Wilhelmine shot him a furious, snake-like glance; Wuerben himself looked surprised, and merely responded with a bow to the effusive speech. Schuetz, of course, was the only one to whom it appeared natural, nay, correct. In his world geniality, translated into jocoseness, was indispensable before, during, and after a wedding—even at these scarcely usual nuptials!

Now Wuerben came forward. 'Mademoiselle de Graevenitz,' he said, 'believe me, I am deeply sensible of the great honour you will do me.'

'Monsieur, I thank you,' began Wilhelmine; but Friedrich Graevenitz interposed pompously:

'As the head of the family, Monsieur, I wish to express to you my pleasure at the thought of my sister bearing your ancient name.'

'My name is much at Mademoiselle your sister's service,' responded Wuerben; and Madame de Ruth surprised a covert sneer on the old roue's lips.

'Come, mes amis!' she cried, 'the travellers must be in need of refreshment. Will you not repair to the guest-chamber, gentlemen? and when you have removed the dust of travel from your clothes, we will partake of an early supper.'

'Madame de Ruth, I will escort the gentlemen to their apartments, if they wish it,' said Friedrich pompously, opening his eyes wide in what he thought was a reproving look, but in truth was only angrily foolish.

'Thank you, Friedrich. I will tell you when I wish your assistance,' said Wilhelmine calmly. 'Dear Madame de Ruth, you are right. I think Baron Schuetz knows the way to the guest-chamber? or shall I tell my brother to summon a lackey?' Her tone was haughty to insolence. The irritation, the disgust, the hatred of her odious though necessary plan, made her mood evil. She was grateful to Wuerben for his silence, and his fine, if somewhat contemptuous manner, and she bestowed a smile on him as he passed out of the room.

A constrained silence fell on the remaining three. Wilhelmine leaned back in the chair into which she had sunk directly Schuetz and Wuerben disappeared; her elbows rested on the chair-arms, and her fingers were pressed together at the points in an attitude of fastidious, artificial prayer. Madame de Ruth fanned herself slowly and watched Friedrich Graevenitz, who stood paring his nails with a small file he had taken from his pocket.

'I certainly do not like your way towards me, Wilhelmine,' he broke forth, puffing out his fine torso. 'You show a spirit which is not nice towards the head of your family! I think——'

'Dear Friedrich, if you could but realise that I do not care what you think,' Wilhelmine interrupted icily.

'And your manner was not kind to Wuerben—a nice man, I like him!' said her brother in an almost ecstatic tone.

'How fortunate!' she called after Friedrich's retreating figure, as he strode across the room with such pompous haste that the affairs of the whole Empire might have waited his directions.

The two ladies smiled at one another wearily when he had gone; then, without honouring this self-sufficient person with a word of comment, they fell to discussing Wuerben. This Bohemian nobleman was not an altogether unpleasing personality. Of middle height, he had a stoop which caused him to appear short; it was not the stoop of the scholar, but that bend which ill-health, caused by debauch, often gives to a comparatively young man. His face was sallow, hollow beneath the eyes, emaciated between chin and cheek-bone. The brown eyes were feverishly bright and a trifle blood-shot. The well-shaven mouth had loose, sensual lips, and the teeth were large and discoloured. And yet one knew that this man, repulsive though he had become, must have been a youth of promise and some personal beauty; and his manner betokened the man of breeding, and one with knowledge of the great world. His sneer at the unholy bargain he was about to make told Madame de Ruth that he was fully aware of the degradation of it. An admirably adapted person for the purpose, she reflected; for, being ashamed of his bargain, he would hide in Vienna, content so long as he had sufficient money to risk at l'hombre and faro. This she and Wilhelmine discussed while Schuetz and Wuerben were upstairs removing their dusty garments.

Suddenly Friedrich Graevenitz burst into the room. 'His Highness has just ridden up to the door! This is really most inconvenient, most difficult for me.' He spoke loudly.

'Hush! be careful! Wuerben must not hear,' implored Madame de Ruth, while Wilhelmine sprang up. She breathed in laboured gasps, her eyes fixed wildly on her brother.

'His Highness? You are mad, Friedrich! or is this some absurd plot against me?' She turned on her brother fiercely. 'Is this some foolishness you have arranged?'

'It has nothing to do with me. I am never consulted,' he began; but his further utterance was cut short, for Eberhard Ludwig entered unannounced.

'Leave us together,' he said shortly. 'For God's sake, Madame de Ruth, manage that I may speak with her undisturbed.' Madame de Ruth hurried Friedrich Graevenitz away with scant ceremony.

'My beloved! oh, to see you again!' Serenissimus clasped her to him. 'Tell me you are mine, as you were at Urach! Am I in time to hinder this terrible sacrilege?'

She told him that the marriage had not yet taken place, that it was for the morrow.

'It cannot be; you are my wife by the laws of God and man! I cannot suffer you to be called the wife of another. Tell me that you will not do this thing. Wilhelmine, my beloved, you cannot—you cannot——' He held her hand in his, speaking rapidly, indistinctly.

'There is no other way,' she said sadly.

'But it is not possible! You cannot, it is a shameful thing. I forbid you to do it. I will never leave you again. My son may reign at Stuttgart. See, beloved, we will live here together—live out our days in peace and love. It shall be a poem, an idyll—far from all interruptions, far from intrigues!'

He looked into her face with shining eyes, but he found there no answering spark of enthusiasm. Dropping her hand he turned away. She was aghast. True, she loved Eberhard Ludwig, but she realised at that moment how much more potent was her love of splendour and power. What! to drag out her life at Schaffhausen—even with him at her side? No, it was impossible.

'Eberhard, be reasonable. This marriage is no marriage, it is simply the purchase of a name. You know well enough the conditions which are accepted by Wuerben. Twenty thousand gulden on the day of our contract, twelve thousand gulden a year for his life. Various fine titles and court charges, provided he undertakes never to appear in Stuttgart, never to claim his marriage rights! He is to sign this document in the presence of the lawyers to-morrow before our——' she hesitated, 'before our marriage.'

'But you will vow before God to love and obey this man; you will give him your hand and kneel with him in prayer. Something of the sanctity of our true vows will be filched away. Sacred you are to me for ever, but oh! this will be desecration! you cannot, you must not——' he moaned.

'You knew this before. You knew and approved, and now you hinder the completion of the only plan by which I can return to you. You cannot give up your Dukedom, you cannot leave Stuttgart, and we cannot live apart.' She spoke harshly.

'But is Stuttgart so much to you? Wilhelmine, do you love me only as Duke of Wirtemberg?' His eyes were full of tears. 'Alas! I am the most miserable of men.'

'Eberhard, heart of my life, look in my face and see if I love you! But because I love you I dare not take you away from your great position, from your ambition.'

'Ambition,' he broke in, 'ambition! I am ready to renounce everything——'

'Will you let yourself sink into a mooning poet, my hero of great battles? No! you shall go back, dear love—back to your grand, soldier's life! See, I will stay here and dream of you, if you will not let me take the only path back to Wirtemberg. You shall write to me, sometimes send me a poem, a jewel perhaps—but we shall be parted! O Eberhard!' She sighed deeply, but her strange, hard eyes watched him narrowly. He turned away his face. She saw that her reminder of his military ambition had succeeded as she expected.

'You are right. Alas! this horrible degradation, this masquerading before God—and yet it is the only way.'

Her arms stole round him. Against his cheek he felt her smooth skin, her warm lips sought his.

'I love you, only you,' she whispered. 'In a few days I follow you to Stuttgart. Come to me!'

He flung her from him almost roughly.

'Not now! God in heaven! not now! Can you dream that at such a time I could? It would make the hideous bargain you contemplate to-morrow one degree more vile.' He turned from her and fled. In a moment she heard the clatter of his horse's hoofs in the courtyard.



CHAPTER XV

THE RETURN

A TRAVELLING coach and six horses thundered into Stuttgart, driven at a hand gallop, and raised clouds of white dust as it passed down the Graben. An escort of Silver Guards rode with this coach. One of the soldiers' horses knocked over a child playing in the roadway, but the cavalcade passed on unheeding, leaving the little crushed figure lying limp and still in the dust.

The coach drew up at the Jaegerhaus, where the doors stood wide open, disclosing a company of servants drawn up in solemn line. Two sentries were posted at either side of the entrance. A black-clad major-domo bowed on the threshold, while half a dozen lackeys sprang forward to receive the tall woman who was slowly descending from the coach. Madame la Comtesse de Wuerben, her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg, Countess Graevenitz, had arrived at Stuttgart to attend to the duties connected with her invalid husband's court charge.

This exalted lady was the first personage of the court after the reigning Duchess, and his Highness had offered her apartments in the castle, but these were refused, her Excellency preferring to occupy an independent residence.

Thus it fell out that Wilhelmine returned to the Jaegerhaus towards the end of September, some four months after she had fled from Urach, and a few days since the mock marriage with Wuerben, 'ce cher Nepomuk, mon mari,' as she ironically named him to Madame de Ruth.

There had been grievous storms at Stuttgart during the days succeeding his Highness's return from hunting in the Schoenbuch, that shooting expedition which had been but a pretext to leave Stuttgart and hurry to Schaffhausen, in order to hinder the celebration of the ceremony of Wilhelmine's marriage.

Serenissimus returned in a mood which would brook no contradiction. He announced to the Geheimraethe, and to the court, that it was his pleasure to revive the ancient office of Landhofmeister, and that he had conferred this, the highest charge of his court, upon a Bohemian nobleman of the name of Wuerben, but that this gentleman being seriously indisposed, his lady-wife had undertaken to fulfil the various duties of Landhofmeisterin, and would reside at the Jaegerhaus. Private information came to the astonished Geheimraethe that this new evil was but the old poison with a new label; that this Countess Wuerben was the hated Graevenitzin. Bitterly they regretted their refusal of the two hundred thousand gulden, but it was too late now.

To Johanna Elizabetha this announcement was made by his Highness in person and with cruel frankness. She was told that she had refused a life of ease and peace, leaving his Highness to enjoy a happiness which she herself could never have provided, and that he took this way to save himself from despair, for without Wilhelmine he would not, nay, could not, live.

'You must abide by this, Madame, and if you are peaceably disposed, and behave with becoming consideration to her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin, it will be possible for you to remain in Stuttgart,' he told her.

Her Highness made no reply to this surprising speech, but immediately wrote to Stetten, imploring the Duchess-mother to come and put order into the family affairs. The dear lady arrived in high dudgeon, and according to her custom stated her opinion to Eberhard Ludwig in words he could not misunderstand. But in vain, and it was a very crestfallen, angry old lady who drove back through the fields to Stetten.