She told the dwarf that he was free to return to that humble cottage in the Swiss valley which he called home. There and then she wrote out a passport for him and an order for a seat in the Duke's diligence as far as the frontier; she gave him a purse of gold, and, more precious still, an official command to all to treat the deformed traveller with consideration; also, as postscriptum, an intimation that if the dwarf did not reach his home safe and unrobbed, she would cause the whole Secret Service to track the offender, who would suffer the utmost penalty of the law. With this document the dwarf could have travelled from one end of Wirtemberg to the other in safety; nay, more, he was sure of even servile acceptance from high and low, for never was monarch so feared in his domains as the Guestrow adventuress in the Dukedom of Wirtemberg.

'God reward you for this great good,' the dwarf said as he turned to leave her presence, and she answered sadly:

'It is too late; God's hand is heavy upon me.' But she did not believe it.

The hours passed, and still the Landhofmeisterin waited for Eberhard Ludwig. She watched the grey dawn slip into the sky, then the glow of the awaking sun came, and she knew that she waited in vain.



CHAPTER XX

SATIETY

'A Cloud of sorrow hanging as if Gloom Had passed out of men's minds into the air.'

SHELLEY.

FRIEDRICH WILHELM and his Highness of Wirtemberg started early on the morning after the state banquet. A number of wild boars had been tracked in the Kernen forest and good sport was anticipated. The Landhofmeisterin from her couch heard the stir of the sportsmen's departure. In happier days she had waved farewell to her lover from her window, now she turned her face to the wall and moaned in anguish. But the day's routine should be carried out as usual, that she vowed; no one should pity her, no one notice that she feared her sun had set. She dressed according to her wont in a magnificent gown, sat patiently for an hour in her powdering closet while the obsequious Frenchman dressed her hair elaborately and powdered the curls afresh.

She reflected grimly on the blessings of powder to age-silvering locks; none would see that her black hair was streaked with white.

Her step had never been prouder than when she walked through her empty antehall which, but a few days earlier, had been filled with a bowing crowd of courtiers. She was almost surprised to find Baron Schuetz awaiting her as usual in the 'Landhofmeisterin's business-room,' that small room on the ground floor of the west pavilion whence for twenty years had issued the ruling orders of Wirtemberg. She worked as she had done each morning for many years. Sitting at the large middle table she transacted the business of the Dukedom. Beside her was a pile of unwritten papers signed at the bottom of each page by Eberhard Ludwig. It was only needful to write any decree above his Highness's signature, to affix his seal beneath, and to add her own official name 'W. von Graevenitz-Wuerben, pro Landhofmeister Wirtembergs,' to make the writing an unassailable, all-powerful, official document. Gradually things had come to this pass. The Duke preferred hunting, shooting, riding, to affairs of State, and in the course of years the Graevenitz had succeeded in grasping complete, autocratic power. There was no one to hinder her; her brother was Prime Minister in name, but he was forced to bring each important matter to her, for she represented his Highness.

The Geheimraethe were one and all her creatures; the Duke refused to meddle, and if he expressed a wish, it was so promptly and ostentatiously carried out that he never realised how entirely he had ceded the reins of government to his mistress. To the Landhofmeisterin's working-room came the officers of the Secret Service, bringing their reports on the doings of all Wirtembergers of high or low estate, each report of value being carefully noted and locked away in the wire-protected shelves which furnished the walls.

The Landhofmeisterin laboured, according to habit, on the morning after the banquet, and if she detected a freer tone in the heretofore obsequious Schuetz's voice, a shade of insolence in his manner, she gave no sign thereof. If anything, she was more haughty, more dictatorial than ever.

'I am retiring to La Favorite for a few days' rest, Baron Schuetz,' she said, when the affairs of the day were accomplished; 'you will bring me any business which it is necessary for me to consider. I shall have these with me'—she tapped the signed pages—'the seal I shall also have with me. As I am fatigued, I shall not work longer this morning. Au revoir, Baron.' He was dismissed.

'Your Excellency would do well to leave me the signatures. I may have need of them,' he said hurriedly, stretching out his hand towards the pile of signed warrant papers.

'Since when can Baron Schuetz dispose of his Highness's signature? I have already told you that if urgent business arises, in spite of my fatigue, I shall be prepared to attend to it at La Favorite. Au revoir, Baron.'

She spoke resolutely, yet in a perfectly unconcerned voice, and Schuetz, fearing lest his observations had failed him, and the 'great one' was after all not nearing her downfall, bowed himself out with his accustomed obsequiousness. He would have changed his mind could he have seen the cloud of misery and anxiety which settled on her face directly she was alone. She arranged various papers, extracting several from the neatly docketed packets. These she regarded as instruments in her hands; this document was a sword of Damocles which she could suspend over the head of that enemy; this other a pistol which, an she willed it, she could level at the credit and honour of another; here a short report spelling ruin to a noble family's pride; there a note to convict an honoured courtier of fraud or of traitorous intrigue. If she was indeed to fall, she would not alone be flung from her eminence; those who had hated her should also be dragged down with her. She smiled bitterly. After all, even though she wreaked vengeance as she fell, what would it avail her? This triumph of her spite would be a satisfaction, but——She sighed, and would have replaced the damning papers in their hiding-place. No! she would take them with her. If the crushing misfortune came, at least she would have the consolation of retaining some power over others.

Sadly she mounted the stairs to her own apartments, and calling the waiting-maid, she bade Maria gather together all the jewels and gold; a few of her best-loved books; some of her most gorgeous clothes. Grumbling, Maria packed them in a huge nail-studded chest.

The Landhofmeisterin stood watching till the last chosen object was safely packed away, then she bade Maria summon lackeys from La Favorite. They came quickly, and her Excellency ordered them to carry the chest to her little Chateau Joyeux. Her voice was perfectly steady as she gave these orders, her face stern and calm. Her whole action was unhurried, deliberate; she might have been making arrangements for a gay hunting expedition. There was no trace of anxiety in her manner.

Maria hovered about, after the lackeys had departed with the chest. Did her Excellency wish for this or that? Should she accompany her Ladyship's Grace to La Favorite? Calmly the Landhofmeisterin bade her precede her, she would follow in a few moments. She heard Maria locking the wardrobes in the chamber below, listened to her giving orders for the redding up of the apartments, exactly as she had heard the maid finish her preparations for departure a hundred times before starting for Urach or Freudenthal.

'Beloved, the coaches await us; shall we begin our journey?' The Landhofmeisterin started. Yes; that was how Eberhard Ludwig had summoned her in the old, happy days. Her nerves had tricked her, it was only an echo of long ago. Could everything, indeed, be ended? Was she leaving Ludwigsburg for ever? Ah, no, no! how absurd! Of course Serenissimus would recall her directly this blustering King had gone back to his drill at Berlin! And yet——

She moved slowly round her rooms. Fifteen years since Frisoni had conducted her to her pavilion! She recalled how she and Eberhard Ludwig had laughed at the little Italian's ruse, when he led them up and down corridors and stairs in order to reach her apartments from his Highness's rooms. The memory of their mirth was torture to her. Once more she took the key from her bosom and, passing through the statue gallery, she gained the hiding-place behind the arras. She listened, but there was no sound; she pressed the secret spring of the tapestry door and entered the writing-closet. Slowly she walked round the room; she had not come to rob the bureau this time, nor to upbraid her lover, nor to tempt him once again. No; she had come to bid farewell, to look her last upon the familiar scene. One of the Duke's gauntleted hunting-gloves lay on the floor; she stooped and lifted it and put it to her lips. Then the full sense of her loneliness came to her, and she sobbed aloud. She hurried away, and her last vision of that well-known room was blurred by her tears.

One parting look round her own apartments, and she passed out on to the roofed terrace which led from the Corps de Logis to the West Pavilion. Here her own face met her on sculptured vaulting and ornamented wall. Her face, young, smiling, voluptuous, surrounded by the emblems of music held by Cupids. Love, music, and herself. What a mockery it seemed to her, this open homage, this enduring monument of a dead passion!

With steady tread she paced down the flight of stone steps to the second terrace. Again a statue with her features met her eye. Frisoni had designed the pedestal. She remembered how she had laughed at the Italian for drawing a figure of Time with huge wings and holding giant sickle-blades in his oversized hands. She had called it awkward and ill-conceived, and the Italian had told her that Time was an awkward giant; that he crushed strength and glory sometimes, and left weakness and shame to live. She had hardly noted the answer then, but it came back to her now. She looked at the sickle-blades and shuddered, knowing that Time had mown her down at last.

* * * * *

All day the Landhofmeisterin busied herself with her books, with playing upon the spinet, and singing her favourite songs. She was a prey to fearful unrest. Night fell, the hunters had returned, and yet his Highness sent no word to her he had called 'Life of my Life.' Perchance he was much occupied. The Prussian King was an exacting guest, she told herself; framing excuses, reasons, all the pitiful resources of a woman's heart, to explain away her beloved's coldness. The fact that the courtiers held aloof from her caused her no pain, only bitter anger, yet even for these she elaborated reasons of absence. How often had she wearied of these people's importunities, how often longed to be left in peace, and yet now she would have given vast sums could she have seen her antechamber full again. She knew that Friedrich Wilhelm's visit would terminate on the morning following the wild-boar sticking in the Kernen forest. Would he go, this rough, virtue-loving despot? She remembered how he had tarried four whole weeks at Dresden when he had paid a visit to Augustus the Strong some years before. And this in spite of his disapproval of the reigning favourite, the Countess Orzelska, and the many lesser stars of that licentious court. Good Heavens! would he stay four weeks at Ludwigsburg? She smiled; even in her despair there was something humorous in her being which no sadness could dull, and she found her own dismay at the honoured guest's possible procrastination a trifle comic.

Eberhard Ludwig must come back to her—he must; she repeated it over and over again. The night brought her no rest; always the same hammering thought, the torturing, nagging possibilities, the tangle of recollections. Sometimes she slipped away for a few moments into a restless sleep, but her dreams were as terrible as her waking thoughts. She was journeying in her coach to Stetten, the horses galloped fast—ever faster!—Eberhard Ludwig was at her side, then, with a gesture of anger, he flung himself out of the carriage. She was alone, and the horses were rushing onwards. A giant figure, of pitiless face, stood in their way—a being with huge, gnarled hands which held enormous sickle-blades. The horses were mown down, now the blades were descending over her. 'Great God! Mercy! he is cutting out my heart!' she awoke screaming.

Then the strain of agonised thought began once more to whirl in her mind. Eberhard Ludwig must come back—he must. She fell asleep, and again the Dream Demon took hold of her. Now she was in Duke Christopher's Grotto in Stuttgart. The mob was nearing her, and her feet always slipped back on the slimy steps—she would never gain the first gallery. A shadowy figure with bleeding hands barred her way—the White Lady—the murderess. 'Back to the world to take your punishment!' the ghost whispered, and oh, horror! she pushed her back with those terrible, bleeding hands—back, down the slippery, slimy steps towards the crowd.

Eberhard Ludwig led the mob, and the Prussian King was with him. 'Beloved of my life, heart of my soul!' the Duke said, and clasped her to him; but his arms had become sickle-blades and they cut her to the heart, while Friedrich Wilhelm laughed and waved a cudgel. It hit her on the brow, blow after blow. 'Wanton, wanton, witch and wanton!' the King bawled at each stroke. She was dreaming; she knew it, she must awake; but the Dream Demon had not done with her. Now she was with Wuerben, now with Madame de Ruth, now at Guestrow, now at Urach in the Golden Hall, but always the glistening sickle-blades followed her. Wuerben cut at her with them; Madame de Ruth, Monsieur Gabriel, every one had got these searing blades, and always Eberhard Ludwig stood watching, watching, and he did not save her!

In the grey dawn she awoke. It was all a dream, then. What was wrong, though? There was something—ah, yes! Eberhard Ludwig had ceased to love her. Absurd! It was a phantasy of her weary brain! She was ill, feverish.—Eberhard was occupied with an exacting guest, that was all. He would come back to her—he must. At last she slept dreamlessly. Fatigue conquered agony, and she slept.

* * * * *

The Landhofmeisterin awoke to a smiling world. Such a glory of Spring, of blossom and lilac. Maria threw open the windows, and the sound of the gardeners raking the paths of La Favorite gardens came in with the lilac scent. It was a good world, a very young world! Alas! the Graevenitz felt old and broken, ill from her night of agony. Maria told her that the Prussian King had left Ludwigsburg. Very early the cavalcade had started, and Serenissimus had ridden away with his guest.

'At what hour does his Highness return?' her Excellency queried.

'Not for several days; they say his Highness stays at Heilbronn to-night, and rides to the frontier with the King to-morrow, then goes boar-sticking in the Maulbronn forest, and will not return for four or five days,' the maid answered. The Landhofmeisterin sighed; in happier days the Duke had bidden her adieu tenderly, if he were forced to leave her for an hour, and now—— But it was absurd; of course he could not always worship her like a young lover, but he would never desert her.

'Who is in the antehall this morning, Maria?' she asked.

'No one, your Excellency.'

So the parasites were dropping away from the threatened tree.

* * * * *

All that day and the next, no one disturbed the solitude of La Favorite, even Baron Schuetz held aloof. On the third morning the Landhofmeisterin sent for him, but the answer came back that the Finance Minister had left Ludwigsburg for a few days' rest. The Landhofmeisterin reflected grimly that Baron Schuetz had never needed repose before.

Eight days passed ere Eberhard Ludwig returned. The Landhofmeisterin's fears had grown dim, habit had resumed sway. She worked at the affairs of State each morning, and save that the business was transacted at La Favorite instead of at the palace, and that Baron Schuetz was replaced by an underling clerk, everything seemed to have lost that touch of the unusual which is part of the menace of coming disaster. True, the courtiers were scarcely assiduous in the visiting of the Landhofmeisterin, but they dared not absent themselves entirely, for they were uncertain as to her fate, and they feared both her revenge and her reputed witchcraft. So they repaired perfunctorily to La Favorite, and though her Excellency refused to receive visitors, still she was informed of the courtiers' visits. Thus the old life seemed to be unaltered, and the Landhofmeisterin forgot her anxiety in a measure, yet a deep melancholy remained over her.

At length Maria reported that Serenissimus had returned, and once more a feverish unrest seized the Graevenitz. Would he come to her? Would he summon her? The night drew near, and no word came from the palace. The Landhofmeisterin's fears reawoke. She paced restlessly up and down the Favorite terrace whence she could see his Highness's windows. The lights were lit. She watched; gradually the palace grew dark. It was as though the light of her youth was extinguished when his Highness's windows grew black. She waited; perchance he would come yet? A terrible weariness fell on her. The night was very beautiful, moonlit and enchanted; the scent of the lilac smote heavy on the air—the lilac and the red thorn blossom—— How beautiful it was, how still, how divinely young it all seemed; and she was old, old and weary, and forsaken and unutterably sad!

'Your Excellency must rest; come, dear Madame!' It was Maria, the faithful friend, the only one who had not profited by her mistress's vast power; she alone who had never sought gain.

'Maria, I am too weary to sleep, and I dream so cruelly,' the Graevenitz said sadly.

'Come and rest, and I will sit beside you all night,' the good soul replied; and indeed, it seemed as though her honesty had driven away the Dream Demon, for the great Landhofmeisterin slept like a tired child watched over by this faithful peasant woman.

The next day the Graevenitz was utterly deserted. No word came from the palace, no Secret Service officers came to report to her, no courtiers thronged the antehall. It was Sunday, and the bells of the palace chapel rang. Maria had heard that Serenissimus had intimated his intention of attending church twice that Sunday. The Landhofmeisterin's thoughts followed him wistfully. Would he sit in his accustomed chair in the gilded pew? Would his eyes wander to the sculptured figures in the chapel, the figures which bore her features? Would he remember how often she had sung to that organ? Alas! Change is Death, and more cruel than Death.

The day passed, and still came no sign from Serenissimus. Then the Landhofmeisterin sent Maria to the town to gather news, and the maid returned and told her that it was rumoured his Highness would start on the following morning to attend the grand military review at Berlin. She had met one of the palace grooms, and he had said that the horses were to be in readiness soon after dawn. Good God! was Eberhard Ludwig taking this way in order to rid himself of her? It was entirely contrary to etiquette to hurry on a visiting monarch's heels in this manner.

Her pride was swallowed up in gnawing anxiety. She wrote to Eberhard Ludwig.

'Love has its rights, you cannot leave me without a word. What have I done? how have I offended you? you, for whom I would give my life! I ask nothing. If you have ceased to love me, then banish me, imprison me, all you will, but come to me once—once only. O beloved! remember the past; come to me and tell me the truth. Tell me to go, and you need never see my face again,' she wrote.

No letter came in answer; only a verbal message, delivered by a sullen court lackey, that his Highness would visit her Excellency ere he rode to Berlin. Her Excellency was to expect him in the early morning, as he commenced his journey betimes, owing to the long distance.

Another night of fierce unrest. Early she rose and made an elaborate toilet. She dressed in yellow, the colour he loved; her hair was freshly powdered, her face carefully painted.

The dew glistened on the close-cropped grass of the gardens, the lilacs were more radiant than ever, the birds in the chestnut-trees sang their spring melody—the chant of nest-building, the mating song.

Eberhard Ludwig rode up the avenue of La Favorite, and dismounted before the terrace steps. His attendant took his horse, and walked the beautiful animal up and down in the shade of the chestnut-trees.

The Landhofmeisterin received Serenissimus in her yellow-hung sitting-room. He was cold and distant, and she was formal and restrained.

'I hope your Highness is in good health?' and 'your Excellency appears to be mighty well!' Then the ice broke, and she held out her arms to him.

'My beloved! my beloved! Ah! to see you again——' But he drew back.

'Madame, life is hard. We must part, you and I.'

'Oh no, no, not that! Tell me what has changed you? I have been true always,' and she clung to him.

'I must alter everything—sinon je suis perdu!' Always that phrase of his, he had called himself so often 'perdu!'

'Alter everything? Yes, yes; all you will. See, I am ready to change, to obey in all things, dismiss any person who displeases you; make some one else Landhofmeisterin, only keep me, do not banish me; you are my life, only you—you——'

'I must leave you; you have brought a curse upon the land——'

'I have brought a curse to you? If you leave me there will be a curse—the eternal condemnation, brought by a broken heart. Eberhard, my beloved! See—I implore you!'

'I must go—I must leave you—sinon je suis perdu—sinon je suis perdu,'—and so they wrangled, and exclaimed, and implored for an hour.

'Your last word then is: Go, woman who has loved me for twenty years!' she said bitterly at last. 'Yes? Well, then, hear me: I will not go!—never, do you hear? We belong together, you and I. All this is some madness of yours, which will pass. Come back to me to-morrow and tell me so, then all will be well. It is well, do you hear? You are maddened, distraught——'

'This is my last word: Retire to one of your castles. I leave you your properties and your title, but Ludwigsburg must see you no more.'

She laughed in defiance. 'I will not go till you drive me forth at the point of the bayonet. Your friend, the King of Prussia, can teach you bayonet drill, and you can practise it on my heart.'

Then he rode away from La Favorite, his horse's hoofs outraging the peaceful dew.

* * * * *

Directly Serenissimus had ridden away, as if in defiance of impending fate, the Landhofmeisterin sent to summon the officers of the Secret Service. She would work, give commands, according to her wont. The officers tarried, and her Excellency waited in her yellow-hung salon. Would they dare, the creeping spies—dare to disobey her? she wondered. She passed out on to the terrace and glanced down the chestnut avenue. With a feeling of relief she recognised one of the Secret Service officers. He was hurrying to La Favorite as fast as, in other days, they and all the world had hastened to do her bidding.

She re-entered her sitting-room and, seating herself at her bureau, began to draft a ducal manifesto. The door opened, and, to her surprise, not the Secret Service officer whom she had thought to recognise, but a very inferior official, a mere spy, entered. He walked in without removing his hat, and came close up to the Graevenitz.

'What will you give me for my information?' he said roughly.

'What do you mean? You have come to report, I suppose; though why my chief officer, Jacoble, sends you, I do not know,' she returned haughtily. He leaned his hand on the bureau beside her.

'I have information which may save your life, but you must pay me for it.' She rang her handbell.

'My lackeys will show you how I pay the insolent,' she said.

'Your lackeys! There will not be one left in your house in an hour's time,' he sneered.

Her face had grown ashen grey; even through her paint the death-like colour showed.

'What are you saying?' she cried hoarsely. 'Here, take my purse, all you will—but tell me quickly—quick, man, tell me!'

At the sight of the heavy golden purse the spy's face and manner changed. 'Serenissimus fell fainting from his horse in the village of Marbach. They cannot rouse him; the doctors say he will never awaken. They carry him to Ludwigsburg to die. No one has remembered you yet, but when they do——!' he flung out his arm in a crushing gesture.

'When they do, they will imprison me till orders come from the new Duke, you mean? Do you think I care? My place is beside Serenissimus, and I go to the palace immediately. Go, take the gulden and go.'

She swept from the room, and the spy saw her descending the steps from the terrace to the garden. Her calm dignity had disconcerted him, and, after all, he feared the Graevenitzin.

He turned to the bureau; at least, he would look through her papers. But even in her distress the Landhofmeisterin had remembered to shut and lock her bureau; and though the spy tried to wrench it open, her Excellency's secrets were guarded by intricate springs, and the man's efforts were unavailing.

The Landhofmeisterin walked swiftly down the shady avenue, and into the palace gardens. She had not passed that way since her departure from Ludwigsburg, ten days earlier. Her sharp eyes took in various neglected details. 'If he dies, and I go, the whole place will fall to ruin,' she murmured.

Great commotion reigned in the castle. She could see that even the sentries were discussing the Duke's health with a crowd of Ludwigsburg burghers. They started when they saw the Landhofmeisterin pass through the courtyard. Involuntarily they fell back into their correct attitudes, and left the crowd's questions unanswered. The Graevenitz hurried to the Corps de Logis, but the doors were closed, as had been those on the north terrace facing La Favorite.

'The doors are locked from inside, Excellency,' said the soldier on guard. 'Count Graevenitz commanded it.'

'So, is my brother within?' she asked.

'Yes, Madame; and Baron Schuetz, Baron Roeder, and the court physicians.'

They had locked her out, then. Ah! but she had her key of the west pavilion, and the key of the doors leading to his Highness's writing-room. She went to her former dwelling-place; there stood no sentry now before her Excellency's pavilion. The windows were closed and shuttered, and when she entered a chill air met her. She shivered; the gay, bright pavilion was like a tomb, the grave of happy hours, she thought. Her upstair rooms were dark and desolate. Once more she realised that she, her power, her glory, were dead things, and she bowed before the inexorable law, Change.

She passed through the statue gallery and into the arras passage. A deathlike silence reigned in his Highness's apartments. O God! would she find a still, white figure—a rigid, sheet-covered shape? She pushed open the tapestry door; the writing-closet was empty, but beyond, in the sleeping-room, she heard whispering voices.

The Duke lay on his bed fully dressed in his riding-clothes. His left arm was held by the second physician, while the chief surgeon bent over it, lancet in hand. A third doctor kneeled, holding a bowl under his Highness's arm, from which large drops of blood welled slowly, and fell with a sickening soft thud into the china bowl.

Friedrich Graevenitz, Schuetz, and Roeder stood near the window, talking together in low tones. They started forward when the Landhofmeisterin appeared on the threshold, and Graevenitz approached her with outstretched hand.

'Wilhelmine, you must not come here now,' he said in an ungentle voice.

'It is my place! let me pass,' she returned; and, waving her brother away, she moved swiftly round to the other side of the bed. She knelt down close to the Duke, and taking his right hand she raised it gently to her lips. The sufferer moved slightly for the first time since he had fallen fainting from his horse.

'Stem the blood, he is returning to consciousness,' whispered the chief surgeon; and the first physician twisted a linen band above the open vein, while the second doctor stanched the blood with a cloth, and then bound up the wound.

'His Highness must have entire quiet, Madame,' the court doctor said, bowing respectfully to the Landhofmeisterin. 'It were well if all retired and left him to my care alone, if you will permit me.'

'As Prime Minister, I consider it my duty to remain——' began Friedrich Graevenitz in a louder tone.

'As chief physician, I consider it my duty to order you to retire! Madame, will you assist me in this matter?' he said quietly to the Graevenitz.

'I will assist you, Herr Medicinalrath, by retiring myself. I am sure the gentlemen will do likewise. Count Graevenitz, I hold the first court charge, and I command you to depart.' It was true; at Ludwigsburg the Landhofmeisterin was entitled to command even the ministers, by reason of her high official capacity. She rose from her knees and looked yearningly at the lover of her youth.

'Will Serenissimus recover?' she whispered.

'Without a doubt now, your Excellency,' returned the physician.

She was passing out when her eye caught sight of the red-stained cloth with which they had stanched the blood from Eberhard Ludwig's arm. Tenderly she lifted it; it seemed to her that it was heavy with her beloved's lifeblood—a precious relic. She carried it away through the quiet, sunlit gardens. It was partly a despairing woman's whim, an absurdity, and partly she was prompted by her magic practices to take the cloth. There was an infallible life elixir and a powerful love potion, one of whose ingredients was the blood of the loved one. She would brew this mixture, Eberhard Ludwig should drink it, then the old happiness would return. He would be strong and well again, and with health would come love and happiness.

The Graevenitz's witch practices had long been an eyesore to his Highness. In the first place, he feared magic exceedingly, and knowing the Landhofmeisterin's extraordinary magnetic power, he believed entirely in her witchcraft. Friedrich Wilhelm had thoroughly alarmed his Highness; doubtless a curse rested on him for his sin. Surely, thus to harbour an avowed witch would inevitably draw down the wrath of God, and 'we princes must make personal sacrifices for State reasons.' Then too Eberhard Ludwig, having ceased to love the Graevenitz, was in a propitious mood for returning to duty.

When the Duke regained consciousness he found himself with the kindly court physician, who told him of the Landhofmeisterin's visit, and of how it had been her touch on his hand which had first roused him from his swoon. The good man prated amiably to his Highness, thinking to please him, but the Duke's face grew dark. The physician had seen her Excellency's care of his Highness during his illness in the preceding autumn, and had been deeply impressed by her charm which she had chosen to exercise upon him.

At this moment the Duke's valets entered to remove the blood-filled bowl and the cloth used to stanch the blood, these having been left by the physician's orders, as it was imperative for Serenissimus to be undisturbed till he regained entire consciousness. The lackeys searched for the cloth, and not finding it, inquired if the physician had removed it. Baron Roeder, who was waiting in his Highness's writing-closet, heard the question through the open door. He tiptoed to the threshold and informed the physician that her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin had carried away the cloth. His Highness heard, and, starting up, commanded Roeder to bring it back forthwith.

'But, your Highness, her Excellency has carried it to La Favorite,' said the astonished courtier.

'You are to fetch it and bring it here! I tell you to go. If her Excellency will not give it, take it by force—by force, do you hear? Here is my signet-ring, show her that. Take a company of guards with you—but bring me back that cloth!'

The Duke was beside himself; he was weak from loss of blood, and he had worked himself into a frenzy of fear. Suddenly the woman he had loved for twenty years had become, to his thinking, a dangerous, threatening witch; she who had lain on his breast, his mistress, the woman who had tended him in illness, the hallowed being he had well-nigh worshipped—offering up his country, his wife, his son, all things at her shrine—now appeared before him as the incarnation of evil to be compelled by a company of guards.

In vain the physician essayed to calm his Highness; he was as one distraught, raving frantically of the missing cloth, of spells and incantations.

* * * * *

Roeder, arriving at La Favorite, stationed his guards carefully. As a fact, the gentleman was terribly alarmed. It was no pleasantry to affront the wrath of the Graevenitz. Was she not a tyrant? and tyrants had strange ways of hanging on to power after actual favour was gone past. And was she not a witch? it was not reassuring to incur a witch's curse. Nay, but she was a fallen favourite, the vile amputated canker of a terrible epoch, harmless now the blister of her evil glory was pricked, and yet——

Politely he requested the Landhofmeisterin to deliver up the missing cloth, but she denied possessing it; he insisted, threatened to call the guard, and the whole house should be searched; he had his Highness's warrant. He showed her the Duke's signet-ring. She raged at him, dared him to oppose her, menaced him. Then, changing her tone, she cajoled him: if she indeed had the cloth, it would be easy for him to retract his statement concerning having seen her purloin it. Then she would be a friend to him; did he forget her power? He questioned her on the uses she would make of a blood-stained linen rag. She told him she had her purposes, and he remembered her witch practices, the stories of the ghastly ingredients of her magic potions. He alluded to witchcraft, and she defied him again, then he called the guard; but when the soldiers' tread echoed in the corridor, she drew the cloth from a hidden panel in her bureau and flung it at him, with bitter words cursing him. And he departed trembling, the fear of the Graevenitz upon him.

Of course this was repeated in high colours to Serenissimus, and his superstitious terror deepened. Then the valets blabbed as to how Maria had often begged for locks of his Highness's hair, for parings of his nails. More absurdities for the magic love potions, very unappetising too. In a violence of revolt against his once beloved, Eberhard Ludwig signed an edict banishing the Landhofmeisterin from Ludwigsburg and from Stuttgart. She could remain in Wirtemberg, residing at any of her various castles; she should retain her monies, and effects, and her rank; but all power, all part in the country's government, was taken from her, and he would see her face no more.

In a mighty virtuous frame of mind Serenissimus rode away to Berlin, leaving this document to be enforced in his absence.

Meanwhile the Graevenitz waited in a fever of anxiety at La Favorite. On the day following his Highness's departure, the document was presented to her by Schuetz and several officers of the law. She tore it across and across, and laughed in their faces. And the solemn officials retired to communicate with their Duke at Berlin concerning the further treatment of this extraordinary woman. Wirtemberg was much excited, for the news of her condemnation and of her defiance spread through the country. For days she was utterly alone with Maria and her personal domestics.

The Sittmann tribe found it necessary for its health to retire to Teinach, a watering-place in the Black Forest; and Friedrich Graevenitz remained secluded at Welzheim, the manor his sister lent him, and which he chose to regard as his own property. Ludwigsburg was like a city of the dead; the Erbprincessin seldom left her apartments now; day after day she sat brooding in deep melancholy. The Erbprinz sometimes rode out from the palace, but he avoided the direction of La Favorite. The Landhofmeisterin, deprived of the company of the man she had loved during so many years, deprived of her accustomed occupation of governing a country, used to the homage of courtiers and the blandishments of parasites, sank into profound dejection.

After some two weeks the Landhofmeisterin heard the thud of a cantering horse's hoofs nearing La Favorite. A wild hope sprang up in her heart: it was Eberhard Ludwig, of course; he had repented of his harshness, and was coming to lead her back in loving triumph to Ludwigsburg.

The lackey announced that his Highness the Erbprinz awaited her Excellency in the ballroom. Ah! not Serenissimus then; but he had sent his son to tell her the good news.

'Quick, Maria, a dash of rouge, a little powder. Is my hair becomingly dressed? Give me my fan—yes! a rose at my bosom. How do I look?' And the Graevenitz sallied down to meet her beloved's son.

This was indeed a triumph. The Erbprinz had never visited her at Favorite or Freudenthal. Everything was coming right, of course—she had known it would!

'Good morning, Prince Friedrich, it is a great joy to me to see you. Are you well? you look in good health.' It was a very smiling, beautiful woman who spoke. Magnificent—a trifle over-mature perchance; but a full-blown rose is a fine thing, though some prefer the rosebud.

'I thank your Excellency; I am well, but I come on an unpleasant mission—I regret——'

'Serenissimus is not ill, Monseigneur?' she cried.

'No, Madame; my father is in the enjoyment of health, but—but—O Madame! believe me, I am loth to be the bearer of such evil tidings to you, for you have always been my friend.'

'Prince Friedrich, if I have been your friend, spare me now; tell me without hesitation what your mission is. Alas! I am indeed a stricken woman.'

In truth, her face was tragic. All the more terrible was this menace to one who had dared to build such a structure of hopefulness upon so slender a basis.

'Madame, my father bids me give you this letter. If you do not obey immediately, I am to enforce these commands. I pray you spare me that, dear, dear Madame!' He took her hand in his and kissed it; he was a very tender-hearted, an easily subjugated little grand seigneur.

'Madame la Comtesse de Wuerben, Comtesse de Graevenitz, Landhofmeisterin de Wirtemberg.—In view of a great change impending in my dukedom, I command you to depart instantly from my court of Ludwigsburg. You are at liberty to reside at any of the castles you have obtained from me, but I forbid you to venture into my presence or to importune the members either of my government or of my court. You have refused obedience to my commands, delivered by my Finance Minister, Baron Schuetz, and by various high law officials. I now make known to you that such future defiance will be punished as traitorous to me. Here is my warrant and signed decree given at Berlin this 29th of May 1730, signed Eberhard Ludwig, Dux Wirtembergis.'

The Landhofmeisterin read this letter once, then mechanically she read it again. It was written by his Highness; no secretary had been intrusted with this precious document. It seemed to her an added cruelty that the well-known handwriting should form these stern words—the graceful, elegant writing which she had seen blazoning her lover's passionate, poetic homage to her in words of love and promises of fidelity. The Erbprinz stood silent with bowed head. What would she say, what would she do, this forceful woman? At length, he raised his head and looked at her. She was still poring over the Duke's letter as though its contents puzzled her. The silence grew intolerable.

'Madame, believe me, I am truly grieved,' he began.

'Grieved? grieved? Ah! who would not be? This is an outrage, a madness. What! can you believe that I can be banished? I? Why, this whole world is of my making, this Ludwigsburg. Go back and send a messenger to Berlin to say that I will not go.' She spoke quietly, almost indifferently.

'Alas! Madame, if you have not left before sunset, I am bound to have you removed by force,' he answered.

'You? My poor boy! You?—you remove me?' She began to laugh.

'It may be ridiculous, Madame,' he said humbly, 'but such are my father's orders.' She laughed again. 'Come, Madame, give me your answer. Believe me, I would spare you pain but if you will not go, I am commanded to have you arrested and conveyed to Hohenasperg.' Then the horror of it came to the Landhofmeisterin.

'I to Hohenasperg? O God! God! that it should come to this! Ah! the cruelty! But still I will fight to the last—I will never go.' Her voice had risen to shrillness, her face was contorted by anger; she looked incarnate rage, a Megaera. Suddenly her features resumed their usual expression—nay, more, it was the face of the grande charmeuse.

'Prince Friedrich, help me; this is only a passing mood of your father's! Let me stay here till he returns from Berlin. Use your power for my good; you are heir to all this splendour; you will reap the harvest of beauty I have sown at Ludwigsburg. Help me, and you will never regret it.' She had come close to him, smiling into his eyes. The frail, sensitive youth flushed scarlet.

'Prince, you are the image of your father as I knew him twenty years ago. You bring my youth back to me.' She laid her hand upon his shoulder and drew him towards her. She was very beautiful for all her forty-five years, her presence was intoxication.

'Friedrich, Friedrich, you could revenge so much—so much neglect, if you were my friend.' Her lips were very near to his, her breath was on his cheek. Like most super-sensitive beings, he was vividly passionate; and she knew it, and this was her last card: to make him love her, aid her to stay at Favorite, then, when Eberhard Ludwig returned, surely jealousy would recall love. It was a dangerous game enough, but it was her last resource.

'Little Friedrich, who makes me feel young again,' she murmured. Now her lips are on his—and the room swings round him—while the scent of the fading lilacs in the garden is wafted in with delicious, heavy, unwholesome sweetness. And she herself, caught by an eddy of her feigned passion, is swept into a wave of sensual recollection. She is in the Rothenwald again on a spring morning—overhead a bird sings a rhapsody—and she——

With a cry the Prince sprang away from her.

'Madame! O Madame! you tempt me from my duty; you must go from here. Indeed, I cannot help you, but I will not let the guards disturb you, till to-morrow. I pray you, Madame, go this day.'

'Never; you do not know me! I will never go. Use force if you will—but I stay at Ludwigsburg.'

The Erbprinz turned away sorrowfully.

'Then I cannot help you.' He took her hand and raised it to his lips. 'Farewell, Madame,' he whispered. Did his lips linger on her hand a little longer than custom dictated? She thought so, and smiled to herself as Prince Friedrich left her.

Hardly had the Erbprinz departed when she heard the sound of approaching wheels in the avenue. 'I am receiving many visitors to-day,' she thought bitterly. To her surprise Monseigneur de Zollern was announced. He greeted the Landhofmeisterin warmly, though gravely, and immediately commenced questioning her on her position. She told him the details of the foregoing weeks. Zollern listened attentively, with his hands crossed as usual over the porcelain handle of his stick. He had grown terribly old in spite of his straight and dapper figure, and his face was like ancient parchment; only the bright, restless eyes seemed eagerly alive.

He told the Landhofmeisterin that the news of her misfortune had reached him, and that he had come to counsel her immediate retreat. He argued with her gently, but she was obdurate; go she would not. Then the old man begged her to depart; he prayed her, by Madame de Ruth's memory, to be reasonable.

'Consider, Madame,' he said, 'I am a very old man—yes, yes, old and broken—and I have travelled far to save you from your own obstinacy, for you are dear to me; you are my one remaining link with the past, with my past youth. You were Madame de Ruth's friend, and I cherish you as that. Yes; she was the love of my life—I may say it now, for it is ancient history—and she loved you. Would she not have counselled prudence? Fly now, that you may return later.'

At this moment a lackey brought a folded paper to the Graevenitz.

'Unknown to me, General Pruckdorff had received orders from my father to expel you by force from Favorite and Ludwigsburg if you have not left by six of the clock this evening. I pray you, Madame, fly! I shall never forget you.—FRIEDRICH LUDWIG, Erbprinz.'

Without a word the Landhofmeisterin handed the paper to Zollern.

'Ah! a charming invitation!' he said loudly, so that the lackey who stood waiting could not fail to hear. 'I should advise you to accept. A most entertaining fete. Order your carosse, dear Madame.'

Calmly the Landhofmeisterin gave the necessary commands for her coach and outriders, and summoning Maria she bade her collect some few objects of value and various papers. Then she took leave of Zollern.

'Au revoir, Monseigneur,' she said.

'Adieu, Madame; this is the last act of the comedy called the Great Intrigue,' he answered.

* * * * *

Yet she tarried till the last moment at La Favorite. It was a terrible leave-taking. She wandered round her pretty rooms, looking her last at the graceful devices, the slender traceries on wall and ceiling, at the things she had loved—the beautiful porcelains, the delicate, brocaded hangings. Then she passed out on to the terrace. What a wondrous summer evening it was! The sun was sinking low in the west—when the last ray had vanished the soldiers would come to drag her away. It was time, she must hasten—and yet she lingered. She leaned on the balustrade and contemplated the palace. Her thoughts travelled back to the days when Ludwigsburg was still a-building, and she and Eberhard Ludwig had planned the gardens together.

'Here should be a parterre of roses,' she had said.

'Nay, jasmine and heliotrope here; the roses must be beneath your window to sigh out their souls before your shrine,' he had answered.

Could it be ended? The habit of years was too strong, she could not realise. She listened to the summer sounds in the garden: the rustle of the gentle breeze in the chestnut-trees, the chirping of the grasshoppers, the bees droning over the flowers. Spring was past, it was summer. 'Ah! winter for me; winter and sadness for ever now,' she moaned. The sun was sinking—she must fly. 'Farewell happiness!' she murmured, and with bent head she passed down the terrace steps and entered her coach.

As she drove down the avenue she heard a bugle ring out from the Ludwigsburg casern.

'Ride faster, hasten to Freudenthal!' she called to her postillions, and at a gallop the Landhofmeisterin's coach thundered away westwards to the distant line of hills where lay Freudenthal. Once she turned as she passed through the Ludwigsburg gates. She turned and saw the great roofs of the palace which had been reared for her, and whence she was henceforward banished for ever.



CHAPTER XXI

THE DOWNFALL

'Life is but a vision—what I see Of all which lives alone is life to me, And being so—the absent are the dead, Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread A dreary shroud around us, and invest With sad remembrances our hours of rest. The absent are the dead—for they are cold.'

BYRON.

FREUDENTHAL was full of ghosts for the Graevenitz: Madame de Ruth, her dead friend; Zollern, who had bade her farewell for ever; and Eberhard Ludwig, the unfaithful lover of her vanished youth. She walked in the gardens, listening involuntarily for the voice which had so often called 'Philomele beloved' from the orchard gate. There was no consolation on earth for her, she knew that; all she had loved, all she had achieved, her power, her great honours, were dead things. The forced inaction of her future tortured her. How would she pass the long dreary hours of the rest of her life? True, the Jewish community of Freudenthal had greeted her with enthusiasm; they were faithful, these despised Israelites. For a moment it had warmed her heart back to a little interest in living. She busied herself with the affairs of the village, but she was used to a press of work, of governing, of vital interests; how could these minor matters occupy her for long?

She tried to read, but though her eyes followed the lines her thoughts flashed away to Ludwigsburg. She struck a few chords on the spinet; unconsciously her fingers glided into a melody Eberhard Ludwig had loved, and only a sob broke from her lips when she would have sung. Ghosts at Freudenthal? She was the ghost herself; she was the shadow of bygone days—the poor, yearning, broken-hearted ghost.

They came and told her that Serenissimus had returned from Berlin, and that he had been greeted by the news of the Erbprinz's serious illness. Prince Friedrich had fallen ill of a nervous fever, they said. Ah, yes! she told herself she had caused it; in her morbid sadness she took the blame of every untoward occurrence upon her shoulders. She had caused Friedrich Ludwig to fall ill, for great emotions must perforce shatter so frail a being as he was, and she had tortured him, tempted him.

One day two travelling coaches rolled into Freudenthal—the Sittmann tribe arrived. It was but ill received by the Graevenitz. Why had they come? she asked. Her sister informed her that Serenissimus had broken up the court of Ludwigsburg; he was to reside henceforth at Stuttgart. Had she not heard? Oh, yes! His Highness was reconciled with the Duchess, and it was disagreeable for former members of the Ludwigsburg court nowadays. This latter was said in a whiny tone of reproach.

'Get you gone to your own apartments, my sister and my sister's brats! If stay you must at Freudenthal, then stay, but leave me now,' the Graevenitz said; and though she was no longer the all-powerful Landhofmeisterin, still there was that about her which made the parasites shrink back. But they had done enough, had they not? in telling her thus roughly that the woman she had loathed and despised with all jealousy's venom during twenty years, had triumphed over her at last.

The Graevenitz stood before one of the most galling of life's lessons, she had to bow to the inexorable commonplace. Her whole being was agonised; she was breasting the dark waters of despair, she was living a tragedy, but everyday life had to go on as usual: the necessary routine of it, the dressing, the eating, the lying down to rest at night. She heard the village children singing on their way home from school, and the harvesters driving merrily to the fields. Sometimes she would cry out in protest against Nature, against the unalterable, indifferent working of the universe: the smiling sun, the peace of summer evenings. All things went their way heedless of her tragedy.

Summer blossomed gloriously; then the long, weary days grew shorter, and autumn brought endless nights to the stricken woman. Once, twice she had written to Serenissimus, but no answer came to her.

The Erbprinz still battled with death. Eberhard Ludwig and Johanna Elizabetha watched together at his bedside, and the Erbprincessin sat stonily silent in the darkened room whose gloom seemed deepened by the poor girl's overshadowed mind.

Then in October came the news that Death had conquered; the Erbprinz had passed away, and the Erbprincessin, half-mad already, had fallen into such despair that her clouded soul grew utterly black, and she raved in hopeless insanity. Truly God's hand was heavy upon Wirtemberg.

A few days after this terrible news the Graevenitz, wandering moodily in the Freudenthal garden, heard the rattle of an approaching troop of horse. He was coming to fetch her, of course—her lover, her trusted one. She had known he must come! And she hurried away to her tiring-room to don her finest raiment. She would meet him like a bride. Was it not fitting that she should be gorgeously attired on this great day of triumph—this renascence of joy in her life?

The gown of golden cloth lay spread out for her; she always kept it ready, for she knew he would come.

'Quick, Maria,' she called, as with trembling hands she began her toilet; 'quick! His Highness comes!' She seemed young again, with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. Then her sister Sittmann burst into the room.

'Wilhelmine, I hardly know how to tell you—it is——' she said, but the Graevenitz interrupted her.

'You need not—for I know—I always knew.' She stood before the mirror fastening a diamond ornament into her hair, and her glowing eyes met her sister's reflected in the glass.

'Good lack, sister! what ails you?' she cried, for the Sittmann's face was ashen, and she gazed at the Graevenitz in terrified bewilderment.

'Who do you think has come, then? Wilhelmine, you are mad! It is a troop of horse, headed by Roeder, with a warrant for your arrest.'

The diamonds slipped from the Graevenitz's fingers, and fell unheeded on the floor, while all the glow and youth faded from her face.

'What are you saying? It is you who are mad—I know—it is his Highness,' she stammered hoarsely, seemingly incapable of comprehending the meaning of her sister's words. Suddenly her vigour returned, her courage, and that perfect grip of startling events which had stood her in good stead for many years.

'Where are they? Maria, bolt all the doors—quick, girl! In the court, you say? Tell them I am in the garden, send them round, then shut and bar each window.' She gave her orders clearly and calmly, like some general, the practised commander in a hundred sieges. By this time all the inmates of Freudenthal had gathered at the door of her apartment: Baron Sittmann and his sons, the brothers Pfau, a horde of serving men and women. Once more the Graevenitz seemed to be the great Landhofmeisterin whose lightest word was law, and they did her bidding without question or comment.

'Back, all of you, I will speak with Baron Roeder.' She moved to her bedchamber window which looked upon the garden. Below, on the terrace, stood Roeder and another officer consulting together in low tones, while through the garden tramped the soldiers, seeking her whom they had treated with royal honours for twenty years. She flung open the window and stood before the two officers.

'Monsieur le Baron Roeder,' she said slowly, 'to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? I am rejoiced to see you; but kindly desire your men to spare my garden—they are ruining my flowers.'

Roeder looked dumbfounded.

'Certainly, your Excellency,' he stammered, 'but I must crave a word with you immediately.'

'I regret, Monsieur, that illness confines me to my room. I cannot receive you. Tell me your business from where you are.' She spoke mockingly, looking down at the man below.

'Impossible! Madame, I must speak with you face to face,' he said angrily; and indeed it was an absurd situation.

'We are face to face, Monsieur de Roeder, and I pray you tell me your mission without delay. I am fatigued with standing so long. Come, I am not in the habit of waiting, Monsieur.'

'Then, Madame, I arrest you in the Duke's name. You are my prisoner, and if you will not come quietly, I shall be obliged to use force,'—this with a gesture towards the soldiers, who had formed into line behind him.

'I am Countess of the Empire, Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg, and none but my superior can arrest me, Monsieur. Also, this house of mine is on free territory, subject only to the authority of the Emperor. I refuse to be arrested, I refuse to give you admittance, and I command you to withdraw.' She spoke perfectly calmly, with the tone given by the habit of command, which she had wielded for nigh upon a quarter of a century.

Roeder hesitated; what she said might be true, and he greatly feared her, but he had his orders from the Duke. He recalled his Highness's words when he had intrusted him with the Graevenitz's arrest: 'I have not done enough. God's vengeance is not fulfilled. The witch-woman, the Land-despoiler is still at large in my country, and God has taken my only son from me. I must purge my land of this sinner—punish her—break her in atonement,' his Highness had said. The Duke was firmly persuaded that so long as the Graevenitz remained free, God's wrath would be on Wirtemberg, and the notion was fostered by her enemies. No one spoke of her now save as the 'Land-despoiler,' that name which the peasantry had called her in secret for many years.

'Madame, give yourself up peaceably, or I shall force my way in,' Roeder called to her; but she had gone from the window, and the house was shuttered, and with closed doors.

Then began the work of breaking into the manor of Freudenthal. Twenty soldiers hacked in the doors with axes, while the rest stood sentry keeping the Jews at bay, for the members of the Jewish settlement gathered round, eager to protect their friend; but they were unarmed, and the inherited submission of their oppressed race made them poor protectors. The soldiers poured into the house. Roeder was received before the Graevenitz's door by Madame de Sittmann. She implored him to spare her sister, who, she assured him, was really ill. The door leading from the Graevenitz's apartment was bolted from within. He knocked loudly, but there being no response, he summoned the soldiers to break it in.

With a crash the door yielded, falling inwards. And then he saw his quarry. She stood in the middle of the room, erect, vigorous, a very flame of hatred burning in her eyes. She was clad in the golden gown which she had donned in honour of joy's return; on her breast was the order of St. Hubertus, and the jewels of Wirtemberg gleamed on her neck and in her hair. Never had she looked more beautiful, more magnificent than in this hour of her defeat, and even Roeder stood silent and abashed before her.

'Well, Monsieur le Baron de Roeder,' she said, 'so you have defied me again? See here, I curse you; you have called me a witch, and you are cursed by me. It will not bring you happiness.'

'It is my duty, Madame,' he replied steadily. Her face changed.

'You are right, man; I grow petty in my old age. See, I forgive you. Alas! my hour has struck.' She held out her hands towards him. 'Do not bind my wrists, I will come. It is useless to fight Fate. Ah, Roeder! Roeder! whither are you dragging me?' Her potent charm was alive in every word. After all, it was a greater weapon than curses; she knew that, and used it now.

'I thank your Excellency for aiding me in my terrible task,' said Roeder huskily. 'Is there anything in which I may serve you before we start?'

'No, Monsieur, I am ready; only permit my maid Maria to accompany me, and to bring such things as are necessary for my comfort,' she said quietly.

'It is against his Highness's orders, Excellency,' he began; but she smiled at him, la grande charmeuse, and as usual she conquered.

* * * * *

Sadly the cortege left Freudenthal. Only once did the Graevenitz break down. As she passed the orchard gate where Eberhard Ludwig had so often stood on summer evenings calling 'Philomele beloved,' she bent her head, and, sobbing bitterly, murmured: 'Change is Death.'

* * * * *

The fortress of Hohenasperg stands about half a league from Ludwigsburg. In the midst of rich orchards this gaunt rock rises abruptly from the plain like some huge fist of a heathen god, threatening the peace of the fruitful land with sombre menace. From heathen days it was named Asperg, after the Aasen or Germanic gods, whose sacred mountain it was. Round this stronghold men fought for centuries: naked barbarians against Roman legions; rebellious knights of old against Imperial troops; Protestant generals against the armies of the Holy Roman Empire; later, Wirtembergers against the invading Frenchmen. Asperg, impregnable in war time, was a prison in times of peace; from its dark walls and giant ramparts escape was impossible for the prisoner. The very name of Asperg was a terror, its shape was awe-inspiring. And hither they brought Wilhelmine von Graevenitz on that smiling October afternoon. Slowly her coach rumbled up to the grim gate over which a sinister lion's head frowns down at those who enter this stern prison. The arms of Wirtemberg are emblazoned on each side of the lion's head, surmounted by that ducal crown for which the Graevenitz had made so audacious a struggle.

Her coach drew up before this gate and Roeder bade her descend. Here his charge ended, he had conveyed the Land-despoiler to durance vile. The governor of the prison met his prisoner at the gate. A bluff-mannered Wirtemberger, short of stature, red of visage, and with fiery little twinkling eyes beneath heavy, bristling eyebrows. A fierce bull-dog man he looked, but his appearance belied him; for he was a tender-hearted gentleman, and received his prisoner with a courteous consideration which many a polished courtier would not have offered to the fallen tyrant. Up the steep, dark, well-like road to the inner courtyard he led the Graevenitz, followed by Maria, who wept bitterly.

'I have orders to lodge you safely, Excellency. Safe you will be here, and I do not purpose to restrict your liberty greatly,' he said as he ushered her into a small chamber with a door leading on to the ramparts. Two sentries stood on either side of the entrance to her apartment, but for the rest the room was clean and pleasant, and commanded a fair view of the plain beneath.

'I thank you, Monsieur, for your kindness,' she said, approaching the barred window. Then she gave a little cry, like to the moan of one wounded when a fresh agony is inflicted.

'Give me a cell, Monsieur—a dungeon; only not that—not that—if you have mercy in your heart!' she pointed tragically through the window. In the dying sunlight lay the great palace of Ludwigsburg, the rounded roofs, the terraces, and the Chateau Joyeux of La Favorite in the midst of flowering parterres.

'I regret, Madame, believe me. I regret infinitely, but I have not another apartment to offer you. Do not look from the window overmuch, Madame.' The old man's voice broke and he put out his strong rough hand to draw her away from the beautiful, peaceful view. But how inconsistent is the human heart! She waved him away, and stood as though rooted to the spot, her eyes fixed upon the scene of her passed happiness.

* * * * *

At first the tumult in her heart shut out the peace which was silently waiting for admittance; the peace of seclusion bringing those calm thoughts which wait upon the fevered soul of man in Nature's vast aloofness. Gradually the beauty of the fruitful plain with its cornfields and rich orchards, the mystery of the far-off hills on the horizon, the poetry of the distant, dark-blue line of the forests, the song of the wind murmuring through those few trees which had sprung up on the fortress terraces and ramparts unabashed by warfare; gradually this peace came to the Graevenitz, and she grew calm. True, she agonised when her eyes fell upon Ludwigsburg, and she raged when the prison governor told her of the march of events in Stuttgart; but still she knew a greater peace, a more equable inner life than had been hers in the day of her power.

A commission waited upon her, demanding the restitution of the jewels of Wirtemberg. Some she had carried with her to Hohenasperg, some had been already found at Freudenthal. It cost her a pang to part with the jewels. Had not Eberhard Ludwig given each one to her with a lover's vow, a passionate word?

They demanded also that she should give up certain locks of his Highness's hair which she had unlawfully retained for purposes of detestable magic. She made answer that she had but one strand of his hair in a diamond locket. She said that she had worn this on her heart for twenty years. 'Is that magic, Messieurs?' she asked. Had they known it, they had indeed touched upon one of her sorceress secrets—the charm of a woman who can love a man with undying poetry and romance. They told her that she must give up this pathetic lock of hair, that she retained it to brew love potions and such abominations. They took it from her, leaving her the empty crystal locket with its encircling diamonds.

'How you fear me, Messieurs!' she said with a flash of her old defiance. Then they left her with her empty locket and her empty life.

Yet her atonement was only beginning; 'the wages of sin is death,' and worse than death a long-drawn agony of humiliation and loneliness. Abasement, shame, defeat, fear, inaction, loneliness, yearning—all these she had drunk in her cup of suffering, but in the dregs there remained one more drop of gall—jealousy.

Now, in the spring before she left Ludwigsburg, she had been annoyed by a rumour which had caused much commotion among the Wirtemberg peasants, and even the courtiers had been infected with a wave of superstitious interest. In the house of Wirtemberg there is a legend which tells how Count Eberhard the Bearded, in humility and repentance of his youthful sins, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem accompanied by twenty-four noble youths bound by sacred vows to purity and godly life. When Count Eberhard was praying before the Holy Sepulchre, of a sudden a withered whitethorn-tree quickened and blossomed in token of God's grace, and a priest in Eberhard's following prophesied that so long as the world lasted, this thorn-tree should flower whenever the noble race of Wirtemberg should bloom anew. Piously the pilgrims bore the thorn-tree back to their native land, and set it in a fair and sheltered spot near to the abode of a venerable hermit. Here Count Eberhard instituted an order of prayerful monks, garbed in fair blue habits, and for many generations these holy men tended the thorn-tree, building giant supports beneath its spreading roots and vigorous branches. In Protestant days the poor thorn-tree was forgotten, save by the peasants who clung to their old legends and vowed that, whenever an heir was born to the house of Wirtemberg, the aged thorn put forth a flowering branch.

It happened that, shortly before the Graevenitz was banished from Ludwigsburg, Eberhard Ludwig, in the course of his wood wanderings, came to Einsiedel where stood the ruined monastery and the fateful thorn-tree. An old peasant woman, who was gathering sticks for her fire in the deserted monastery garden, told him of the legend, and, pointing to the whitethorn, exclaimed: 'You who are a traveller, go to the palace and tell the Duke that the thorn has blossomed. Tell him to leave the wanton Land-despoiler, and go back to his true wife. God has caused the thorn to bloom anew in token of pardon, and there will be an heir born to Wirtemberg to take the place of the dying Erbprinz.' Now the Erbprinz was not dying when the old crone spoke these words, but Eberhard Ludwig, always feverishly anxious for his son's welfare, hurried back to Ludwigsburg in an agony of fear and related the peasant woman's prophecy, and the strange fact of that ancient thorn-tree putting forth a spray of white blossom. Her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin had been much offended by the story, and had mocked Serenissimus for his credulity.

Of course when, shortly after this event, Eberhard Ludwig repudiated his mistress and returned to his neglected Duchess, popular report immediately had it that the whitethorn had prophesied the happy occurrence, and that her Highness Johanna Elizabetha was to become a mother. This the Graevenitz had heard during her sojourn at Freudenthal, but it was in November at Asperg that she heard the Duchess was indeed with child. At first she vowed she did not believe it; it was an absurd story started by the believers in that ridiculous thorn-tree; but when the fact of her Highness's pregnancy could be doubted no longer, the Graevenitz fell into an agony of jealousy. She paced her small room like some tortured tigress; she cursed all men; she sobbed in a passion of anger. Waking or sleeping the thought never left her. Her dreams were for ever of Eberhard Ludwig and the woman she hated. God, how she despised her! How she shuddered at the thought of her motherhood. She told herself that it was disgust, and even as she formulated the thought she knew that it was envy—cruel, aching envy which tortured her. She was jealous, then? She? The very supposition was an abasement. Could she be jealous of that dull, heavy woman, with her reddened eyes? But she would be the mother of his child. . . .

They told her that prayers for her Highness's safe delivery were offered up in all the churches in Wirtemberg, and that there was immense rejoicing in the land. There was no doubt then, and the Graevenitz's dreams were unending of the Duchess holding out a beautiful man-child to Eberhard Ludwig, who smiled in happiness and peace.

At length one day in December Maria told her that there were exciting rumours in the village which nestles at the base of the fortress rock of Hohenasperg. The Duchess was sick unto death, they said, and the doctors were entirely puzzled. Into the Graevenitz's heart there crept a ray of hope. God forgive her! she prayed for death to visit Stuttgart's castle.

Daily she sent Maria to the village to learn the news. One day the governor came to her and told her he had a terrible thing to communicate. Good, honest man, he often spent an hour with his prisoner telling her news of the outer world.

'The Duchess has suffered a cruel disappointment, Madame,' he said; 'all Wirtemberg will condole with her. Her hopes are ended, the doctors have been mistaken, there will be no heir to the Dukedom. Her Highness suffers from dropsy. Great heavens! what ails you?' he cried, for the Graevenitz had flung herself back into her chair, convulsed in a horrible paroxysm of mirthless laughter.

* * * * *

The plain below Hohenasperg was white with snow—a light fall, which lay thinly on the even ground but had failed to whiten the fortress rock, where only patches clung, emphasising the sombre colour of the stone hill. The sky was leaden, lowering, sinister, pregnant with unborn snow. A company of horsemen took its way up the steep road leading from the village of Asperg to the fortress. Following this cavalcade was a coach drawn by four horses. The Graevenitz, standing on the west terrace, watched the horsemen approach. She wondered idly if another State prisoner was being conveyed to Hohenasperg. She saw the leader of the troop parleying with the sentry. He showed a document to the man; then the outer gate swung back and the cavalcade was hidden from her sight between the gloomy walls of the steep, dark lane leading up to the second or inner gate. She turned away; after all, these things were of no account to her. That was one of her agonies; she to whom all things had mattered, the much occupied, the ruler, the indefatigable administrator—she was forced into lethargic quiescence. Every hour was empty for her. She turned away listlessly. The afternoon was drawing to a close. It would be a white world to-morrow, she reflected, for those swollen clouds could not hold the snow longer.

The prison governor was coming along the terrace towards her. She greeted him in friendly fashion; but at first he spoke no word, only took both her hands in his.

'I have bad news, Madame,' he said, after a pause.

'Ah! tell me; I am used to sadness now. What is it? O God! but it is not some accident to Serenissimus?' she said. The old man shook his head.

'No, Madame, but you are to be removed from my care. And I fear——' he began.

'Death? Would he dare? After all, perhaps, it were better,' she said calmly.

'No, not that; you are to be moved to Hohen-Urach. . . . Madame, they will try you for your life. Alas! his Highness believes you have cast a spell upon the Duchess and caused her misfortune. Asperg is too close to Stuttgart.'

She smiled at him. 'It does not signify, dear friend. One prison is like another, I suppose; but I shall miss my jailor! Let me thank you, Monsieur, for your great courtesy to the fallen Land-despoiler.' She spoke almost gaily, and the governor turned away his head.

'I would help you, Excellency; pray God I may be able to serve you one day,' he said huskily.

'Tell them I shall start to-morrow, when the snowstorm is over. I shall be prepared.'

'I regret—Excellency—In truth, I scarce know how to tell you—It is ordered that you shall travel to-day—immediately,' he said.

'A prisoner has no choice, Monsieur,' she answered bitterly.

* * * * *

As the cortege passed out of the Hohenasperg gate, the first snowflakes fell, and when they reached the village at the foot of the hill there was a whirling storm.

The journey to Urach through the snow was terrible. For hours the cavalcade wandered in the snowdrifts between Nuertingen and Urach, and when at length the unhappy woman was housed for a few hours' rest in a village inn, her slumber was broken by the sounds of rude merriment in the hall below her sleeping-room, where the peasants were dancing. She was wont to say afterwards that this trivial episode had been one of her most painful experiences. Her nerves were on the rack, for she expected that some cruel trial awaited her at Urach. She was terribly weary from the long hours of wandering, and from cold and exposure; her pride had been galled by the gaping, laughing, jeering, mocking crowd of peasants which had stood round her while the captain of the guard made arrangements for her night's lodging. Then her sensitive ear was tortured by the peasants' music, which beat on and on in monotonous, inharmonious measure all through the night.

If suffering is atonement for sin, certain it is that the Graevenitz agonised at Urach. Her imprisonment was infinitely more rigorous than it had been at Hohenasperg. The governor treated her with scant consideration, and answered her questions shortly. He forbade the faithful Maria either to go to the town or to speak with the other inhabitants of the fortress prison. Thus the Graevenitz had no knowledge of the doings in the world. She tasted real imprisonment, the torture of being entirely cut off from human interests. Also she was left in ignorance of her future. Death, banishment, perpetual imprisonment? She knew nothing. She penned passionate appeals to his Highness, but the governor informed her that he could forward no writings from a prisoner awaiting trial.

'When shall I be tried, and for what offences?' she demanded.

'I am not at liberty to say,' he returned, and left her.

She fell ill, or feigned to do so, and when the apothecary tended her she offered him vast sums if he would tell her what had occurred in Stuttgart. The man reported this to the prison governor, who further restricted the Graevenitz's liberty in punishment. She was no longer permitted to walk on the ramparts. She grew really ill after this. For many days she lay upon the rude pallet, which was called bed at Urach, and, turning her face to the wall, refused to take nourishment. Maria, in an agony of fear, sought the governor and told him her Excellency lay dying.

'A very curious coincidence,' said the governor musingly.

'How, sir? I do not understand,' inquired Maria.

'It is said that his Highness lies dying also; there can be no harm in telling you that,' replied the cautious official. Maria, burdened with her sorrowful secret, returned to watch over her beloved mistress. For weeks the Graevenitz pined in hopeless sadness and physical illness, then her old spirit returned, and she faced life again. Maria had not told her that Serenissimus was sick unto death, dead perhaps by this time; she knew not, for none at Hohen-Urach would answer the witch's serving-maid.

Spring came, and the Graevenitz petitioned the prison governor to permit her to walk on the ramparts as before. Unwillingly the man acceded to her request, and once more she was at liberty to breathe the air of heaven, and to feast her eyes upon the majestic view of the hill-country. But there was pain for her, even in this her one enjoyment, for from the rampart she looked down upon that little hill-town of Urach which had seen her in the heyday of her youth and love. She could even see the windows of the Golden Hall where she had held high revel on that summer night so long ago, and whence she had fled before the Emperor's stern decree. Remembrance was pain, and yet her thoughts lingering in the past brought her echoes of joy and laughter. What matter if the echo was softened by a sigh?

At length, in August, an attorney waited upon her in her prison. He was charged to defend her in her trial, he said. A semblance of justice was to be meted out to her; she should benefit by the pleadings of a man of law. This personage was a village notary, and all unfitted by knowledge or experience to battle against the skilled prosecutors. And yet she was grateful; for, at least, she would thus learn of what she was accused. The list of her crimes was appalling. Firstly: treason. Secondly: purloining of lands and monies. Thirdly: witchcraft and black magic. Fourthly: bigamous intent. Fifthly: attempted murder. It is characteristic of the age that the fifth indictment should not have been the first.

Her treason consisted in having grasped the reins of government from the hand of their rightful wielder, his Highness Eberhard Ludwig of Wirtemberg; in having kept back from his knowledge many facts in the administration of the country, and destroying documents addressed to him. Also in having been untrue to him in word and deed. Almost comic this last—a sort of topsy-turvy adultery charge!

'Purloining of lands and monies.' She replied that if his Highness's presents were accounted to her as peculation, she had been guilty. For the rest she, having governed the country in his name and with his sanction, had made free use of the revenues for legitimate and public official purposes, exactly as do other rulers, be they kings, dukes, or ministers of state.

To the charge of witchcraft and black magic she refused to make answer, save that she denied harming man, woman, child, or beast. She was still hoist with her own petard: the pitiful belief in the potency of her absurdities.

Bigamous intent she repudiated proudly. She had been married in all legal form, and according to the ancient privileges of ruling princes to take to wife whom they chose, provided they, by open and public decree, declared any prior union null and void. It had pleased the Emperor as over-lord to decide otherwise, and she had bowed to this decision, thus forfeiting her just rights. For this she could not be punished, she averred.

The attempted murder she denied absolutely. It was an absurd story founded on the indiscretion of an insane servant, whom she had dismissed from her service.

For the rest, she referred her accusers and her judges to the first, and only competent witness on her side, viz. his Highness Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Wirtemberg.

Such in few words are the contents of the massive dossier of her trial, and her dignified answers.

The details these gentlemen of the law permitted themselves to prepare are numerous, and unfit for publication to-day. Her alleged misconduct (she being mistress, not wife—the term seems strangely applied!) is accompanied with a dozen disgusting stories, which it must be said were entirely fabricated for the trial; and, as she herself pointed out, the chief and only competent witness on her side was the man she had loved and lived with for over twenty years,—who, however, was the very person to permit the commencement of this trial, and must have read and approved the accusations in all their revolting details! He also, and he alone, could prove that the woman had governed, purloined, etcetera, with his sanction. He alone could say whether he had made free gifts to his beloved mistress of lands, jewels, and monies; or whether she had appropriated them without his consent.

Concerning the witchcraft charge it is difficult to exculpate the Graevenitz, seeing she herself refused to deny her magic practices, and there is little doubt that she possessed that magnetic or hypnotic power, the use whereof our ancestors called witchcraft. It is curious to speculate how much of this power, in wonderfully subtle and varied forms, exists in every human being of whom we say: 'They have great personal charm.'

The village notary carried the Graevenitz's answers to Stuttgart, and for many weeks the unhappy woman heard no more of her trial. She waited in a fever of impatience, but she dared not make any endeavour to obtain news for fear the governor should see fit once more to restrict her little liberty.

Her pride was not broken; it was terribly sentient, quivering with painful defeat and humiliation. Worse than all was the silence she was forced to maintain. She spoke with Maria, but the good, tender-hearted peasant, though she sympathised passionately and with that noble loyalty of which such women are capable, yet she could not comprehend or respond to the workings of her mistress's brain, could not offer consolation to the cultured mind.

In truth, it was a terrible downfall, a disaster; this gorgeous life, this towering success, which of a sudden had been broken, flung down into the very depths of mortal abasement.

The summer days passed. Autumn came, and still no news arrived from Stuttgart, nor did the notary return to give her information. Suspense deepened to melancholy, and, as the days dragged by, melancholy was supplanted by despair. 'I shall die in Hohen-Urach,' she said to Maria.

At length towards the beginning of November the notary arrived.

'Your trial will take place soon, Excellency,' he said. 'It has been retarded by his Highness's illness; that being over, the matter will proceed.'

The man rubbed his hands in self-satisfaction. He was persuaded that the authorities in Stuttgart had chosen him for his qualities of mind and knowledge of law, and he had become a very important personage in his own estimation and in that of his cronies in the village.

'His Highness's illness, Herr Maerkle? I pray you tell me what has ailed the Duke?' Her voice shook a little, but the man had spoken so airily that she could not believe the Duke's illness had been serious.

'Ah, Excellency! you were unaware of the sad circumstances? Yes, truly, a long and painful malady; lung trouble it was.'

'It is over then? quite passed? I rejoice,' she returned.

'Yes, Excellency; it ended a week ago. His Highness died in his sleep.'

She looked at him for a full moment as one deaf, who, knowing some one has spoken some word, hears not and wonders pitifully. The notary had turned away and busied himself with writings and documents on the table. Already his thoughts were rehearsing a wonderful oration he would speak, a masterpiece of pleading. What a great man he was, to be sure! Of course, he would move to Stuttgart. His ambition soared—surely a very great lawyer.

A rustle of silken garments in the room behind him, and two hands fell on his shoulders: hands of iron they seemed.

'Say that again; you do not know what you have said.' It was a strange voice which spoke: a voice so hoarse, so toneless, that the fat little man trembled, recalling in a flash the stories of witches' transformation into ravening wolves or terrible demons. He wriggled round. The Graevenitz stood over him, her hands upon his shoulders, her eyes like two flames scanning his face.

'Say what, Excellency? I do not know——' The trivial fact of the Duke's death and of this woman's agony had been lost for him in his dream of his own judicial splendour.

'What did you say of his Highness? Tell me, or I will kill you,' she returned in the same fearful voice.

'I said what all the world knows: that the Duke Eberhard Ludwig died from lung trouble, on the 31st of October—a week ago,'—he answered angrily, struggling to remove those gripping hands from his shoulders.

'It is a lie! Another lie to torture me. Go, you lying, cruel devil—the Duke shall punish you.'

She was mad for the moment; sense, dignity, all was swept away in her terrified fury. She pushed the man from the room, her murderous hands gripping and bruising his shoulders with demoniacal force.

'Go, liar!' she cried, as she thrust the little man through the door.

She stood silent and motionless. 'He said that all the world knew,' she whispered hoarsely.

She flung herself face downwards on the stone floor of the prison-room, moaning and biting her hands like one possessed of a devil.

* * * * *

Duke Karl Alexander, successor to Eberhard Ludwig, was a gallant gentleman, hero of a hundred battles. He was received in Wirtemberg with popular enthusiasm, in spite of the damning fact that he was a Roman Catholic. He reassured his people by swearing to uphold the Evangelical Church. This being so, he began his reign with the entire approbation of the Wirtembergers, and in the press of business and rejoicings the trial of the Graevenitz seemed forgotten. Still, the mass of carefully prepared accusations remained, and the gentlemen of the law but bided their time.

Meanwhile the chorus of approval in Stuttgart wavered; for if Eberhard Ludwig had countenanced the Land-despoiler, Karl Alexander was also ruled by a favourite, into whose hands he confided the administration of the Dukedom. This favourite was Joseph Suess Oppenheimer, a Frankfort Jew. To the horror of officialdom, Suess was made Minister of Finance, and, in point of fact, chief adviser to the new Duke.

Unheard of that a Jew should be admitted into the government! That one of the despised race should appear at court; not only appear, but rule, direct all things, be the familiar friend of a noble Duke!

If money had been levied by the Graevenitz, far heavier taxes were imposed by Suess Oppenheimer. If the court at Ludwigsburg had been brilliant and lavish in the Land-despoiler's day, it was the scene of an unending series of costly festivities under the new regime. And if the late Duke's mistress had been ruinous to the country's finance, the new Duke maintained half a dozen such ladies in the greatest splendour. Suess was accused of arranging the Duke's relations with these ladies, and of sharing their favours with his unsuspecting patron. It is certain that the Jew led a dissolute life, and that his amours were numerous.

The Wirtembergers were in despair, and murmured more ominously than ever; but they were powerless. Suess was master of the situation, exactly as the Graevenitz had been before.

Of all this the prisoner at Hohen-Urach knew nothing. She succeeded in persuading the governor to forward a letter from her to her brother, Friedrich Graevenitz, in which she implored him to visit her; but she received no answer from that estimable personage. In point of fact, he was in an awkward predicament himself. True, he had sided against his sister openly, but the Duke, not relishing a too glaring reminder of the past, had commanded him to retire to Welzheim. At Eberhard Ludwig's death Graevenitz waited upon Karl Alexander, who, honest gentleman, disapproved of a brother showing open hostility and ingratitude to a sister, and begged the petitioner to return to his country-seat.

Now Graevenitz, to his horror, found that he was implicated in his sister's misdemeanours. Had he not shared in the benefits of her peculations? In vain he protested, denouncing his sister and benefactress in pompous self-righteous words and writings. But the legal authorities paid no heed, and intimated briefly that Welzheim did not belong to him, although he held it in his possession; nine points of the law certainly, but not conferring ownership. He was directed to relinquish Welzheim to the new Duke's representatives. This he declined with many high-flown expressions, which, however, the legal gentlemen considered beside the point at issue; and Count Friedrich Graevenitz was lodged in his own palace in Stuttgart, under arrest and well guarded. He was tried for peculation, but the prosecution ceased when Friedrich Graevenitz consented to deliver up Welzheim to his Highness the Duke, and to pay a fine of fifty-six thousand gulden. He was liberated and permitted to leave the country, which he did, repairing to Vienna where he appealed to the imperial tribunal for justice.

When he received his sister's letter he was under arrest, and later his own affairs absorbed him. So the Graevenitz's appeal remained unanswered. The appointed day came for her trial, and the village notary spoke his dreamed-of oration. The tribunal listened, or appeared to listen, but the sentence was a foregone conclusion. Wilhelmine von Graevenitz, Countess of Wuerben, late Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg, was condemned to death.

Yet it was written in her book of Destiny, that Vienna should interfere in all the important events of her life. The Emperor intimated that, as Countess of the Empire, she could not be put to death without his consent, and this he withheld. Suess Oppenheimer[2], Wirtemberg's Minister of Finance, had appealed on her behalf. The sentence was commuted to perpetual imprisonment and forfeiture of all lands, monies, and jewels. This information was imparted to her by the prison governor. She received it calmly, merely remarking: 'Death would have been much shorter.' She had sunk into an apathy since the news of his Highness's decease.

The winter passed without event. Spring found the Graevenitz grown white-haired, and she had fallen into the habit of patient, indifferent acquiescence in all things. Maria wished her to walk upon the ramparts for an hour's fresh air? Very well, she would go.

'Your Excellency must eat, must sleep, must rest.'

'Certainly; it does not matter. I will do as you say, Maria.'

It was as though she gave her body into the peasant woman's command; her soul was elsewhere, in that mysterious land into which her eyes seemed to be for ever gazing with painful, straining effort, seeking—seeking and imploring.

Towards the end of May, an official document was brought to the governor of Hohen-Urach. It contained the pardon of Wilhelmine von Graevenitz, provided she undertook to leave Wirtemberg for ever, and to abandon any future claims upon land or property of all sorts in the Dukedom. The governor was directed to accompany the lady to the frontier, with an escort of two hundred horse. Further, he was to place in her hand, at the moment of her passing out of Wirtemberg territory, a sum of a hundred thousand gulden, 'in fair compensation for any loss incurred,' it was set forth in the pardon. With this surprising document was a sealed letter addressed to the Graevenitz, which was to be delivered immediately.

The governor repaired to the prisoner's apartment, but found it deserted. The Graevenitz was taking the air upon the ramparts. He found her leaning over the stone parapet, gazing, as usual, into the distance with those terrible, haunted, unseeing eyes. In vain the valley was radiant with Spring's tender treasury; she gazed unseeing at the wealth of blossom, the feathery green of the beech-trees, and at the rounded hills so rich in sombre firs enhancing the wondrous youth of the beech leaves; at the little hill-town, red-roofed and sheltered, clustering round the old castle. All this peaceful beauty of Nature's renascence was nothing to her. As she had said, death would have been much shorter; this long-drawn agony, this numb pain, was death in life.

'I have the happiness to announce to your Excellency that his Highness the Duke has granted you pardon. When it suits you to travel, I am to accompany you to the frontier under escort,' the governor said coldly.

She turned her eyes upon him, but she gave no sign of comprehension; once only she started and winced, when he said his Highness the Duke, otherwise she remained unmoved and unresponding as one deaf. He waited a moment for her to speak, then slowly repeated his announcement.

'Where am I to go to?' she said at last in a low, uncertain voice.

'Where it pleases your Excellency. Anywhere out of Wirtemberg.'

She turned to Maria who stood behind her. 'Have I a house anywhere? I have forgotten,' she said.

'Surely, surely, Excellency; your castle at Schaffhausen,' replied the peasant woman.

'Very well; we will start to-morrow for Schaffhausen,' the Graevenitz answered in her new, broken, docile voice.

'There is a letter for you, Madame,' the governor told her.

'A letter? Who should write to me? The dead do not write.'

'O Madame! Madame! read it; there may be good news,' cried Maria.

'Good news? Good news for me? There can be none. Do you not know that there can be none?' she said tonelessly.