'In God's hands are all things. It is blasphemy to fear.'
'In God's hands are all things. It is blasphemy to fear.'
TheImperial decree was uncompromising: 'She leaves your court, this adventuress, or ill betide her. If you take a mistress, well and good—that is not in the power of Emperor to forbid; but you have infringed the Empire's laws by bigamy, Serenissimus, and this we will not tolerate. The lady must depart; if she goes not, the rigours of the law will crush her. No more of your mock marriage, no more of your sorry, sham court.'
Thus the gist of the document which shattered Wilhelmine's hopes and interrupted her triumph at Urach. But to relinquish her ambition thus easily, instantly to render obedience to Father Vienna, this was not to be expected from so potent a lady, nor indeed from Eberhard Ludwig, who, besides being deeply enamoured, judged his prerogative as an independent reigning Prince to be threatened by this summary command. Then, too, all the parasites of the mock court advised resistance; urged it in every way, for their own existence depended upon the Countess of Urach and the continuance of her royal retinue.
His Highness penned a private letter to the Emperor, in which he set forth many arguments and added passionate entreaties. In his reasoning he quoted historical examples of a Prince's right to discard a wife for causes of State necessity or convenience. Even Henryviii.of England was held up as a pattern in this! One wonders whether the Emperor had sufficient historical learning to smile at this unfortunate reference.
Schütz was despatched with this private missive and other intricate legal documents.
Meanwhile the life at Urach went its usual course: hunts, feasts, music, cards, love and laughter. Naturally those few members of the former Wirtemberg court who had suffered themselves to be drawn into the vortex of gaiety, now withdrew, and the Grävenitz circle grew to be more and more the refuge of the brilliant disreputable. Adventurers flocked in from all sides and, were they but entertaining, immediately became bright satellites revolving round the sun of Wilhelmine's magnificence. Of course, these personages were not welcomed by the older stars—the Sittmanns and company; but the favourite waxed more overbearing, more autocratic each day, and she permitted no censure of her will.
The Duchess Johanna Elizabetha was not idle; she had summoned her family from Baden-Durlach, and they were moving heaven and earth, or rather Vienna, in her cause.
Schütz wrote that things were going badly for the Grävenitz: the Emperor was obdurate, the Privy Council was stern, and public opinion strong against the double marriage.
Johanna Elizabetha at this crisis fell ill—'of a colic,' said the court of Urach scornfully; 'of poison,' said Stuttgart, Baden-Durlach, finally Vienna. This was serious, wrote Schütz. There were not wanting persons who hinted that other inconvenient wives had died of this same class of colic, and that the illness had been caused by the rival mistress. Eberhard Ludwig raged, Wilhelmine laughed, but Zollern looked grave, and spoke of the Prussian letter of royal protection, and of the beauty and safety of Schaffhausen.
Anger gave place to anxiety, when a private letter from the Emperor to Eberhard Ludwig arrived. It was really an unpleasant letter, and the court, to whom its contents were communicated, felt that it was the beginning of the end. His Majesty wrote that he gave Serenissimus one last chance of saving the lady of his heart. She must yield at once, or the law would proceed against her ruthlessly. The Emperor added that he had commissioned the Electors of Brunswick, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and Hesse-Cassel to act as intermediaries in the matter. They were empowered to settle the dispute in hisMajesty's name and in the interests of virtue, law, and order. Serenissimus was overwhelmed. He vowed he would abjure his allegiance to Austria, and as for the Protestant Church which had proved so inconveniently honest, that could go by the board and he would go over to Rome.
The Pope Clementxi.was unfriendly to Austria politically, and his Holiness would welcome the Duke of Wirtemberg to the fold. For the rest, Eberhard Ludwig talked wildly of approaching Louisxiv.and throwing in his lot and his army with his old adversaries. The Pope was indeed informed of the whole tangle, and had entered into secret negotiations with Zollern on the subject.
Hereupon Forstner reappeared, and by his reproaches, his tediousness, and his tactlessness nearly confirmed Serenissimus in his frantic decision. Then arrived Osiander. He was a man of great strength of character and intellect, and he succeeded in demonstrating to the Duke the dishonourable nature of his intentions. Also he induced his Highness to comprehend that the Pope, though ready to gather all men, and especially princes, into the maw of Rome, could not make a double marriage legal where there was no feasible plea for annulment of the first union. To be politically hostile to Austria was one thing, to enter into open combat with her another. Wirtemberg was not a large enough bribe in any case.
At this juncture arrived the Electorial ambassadors, and lengthy, tedious negotiations commenced. The deliberations seemed endless. Did the ambassadors believe their task to be nearing completion, the other side had always a fresh plea, a new quibble; and the winter was far advanced before these unfortunate envoys declared that they could do no more.
'We have proved the so-called marriage to be illegal,' they wrote to the Emperor; 'we have offered lands and moneys to the favourite; we have been conciliatory, then threatening, but Serenissimus is as one blinded, and the woman remains in her preposterous position. We can do no more, save humbly to recommend your Majesty to enforce the rigours of the law against this bigamous female.' So BrunswickBrunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and Hesse-Cassel retired discomfited.
On the other side, Schütz in Vienna had made no headway. The mock court continued as before, sometimes at Urach, sometimes at Tübingen or Wildbad. Stuttgart was deserted, save for the mournful presence of the unhappy Duchess.
The Countess of Urach's circle widened considerably, constantly enlarged by inquisitive travellers, and it was marvellous how many of these persons lingered and took root in the easy, evil soil of this unhallowed, unlawful court. The very servants were for the most part of doubtful character, and it is remarkable how successfully the Grävenitz ruled her strangely composed household. She had the power to win hearts when she chose, and she did choose where her domestics were concerned. Her method was based on the human point of view. 'If I take this rascal into my service and treat him well, he will respond by gratitude. At least, he will be bound to me and to my interests. Should he betray me I can punish him; but he is too disreputable for any one else to defend, therefore he is mine, my creature.' These theories she expounded to Madame de Ruth, never to Serenissimus. He, poor deluded one, thought his mistress a very charitable lady, and loved her the more for her kindness to sinners. Among this motley crew of her choosing was an Italian of the name of Ferrari, who had come to Tübingen with a troupe of strolling actors.
In Tübingen the man had fallen ill, and Wilhelmine, hearing through the maid Maria of the Italian's misery, caused him to be nursed back to life. Then, when the grateful rascal came to thank his benefactress, she took him into her service. The man proved himself useful; he was quick and intelligent, and conceived a dog-like affection for the Grävenitz, who rewarded him by employing him in any secret message she desired to be conveyed. He it was who procured for her the various ingredients she used in her magic brewings. He who spied upon the Duchess, for Wilhelmine had a morbid curiosity to know each action of the woman she injured. The people whispered that Ferrari instructed the Grävenitz in the mysterious and terrible secrets of Italian poisons.This gossip reached the ears of Johanna Elizabetha and she trembled, fearing poison in all she ate, in all she touched, in the petals of the roses of the castle garden, in the dust which lay on the road.
An ugly story leaked out. The Duchess's head cook, Glaser by name, recounted how Ferrari had visited him and offered him a purse of gold and a little phial which contained a greyish white powder. This, Ferrari had told him, was a rare medicine known in Italy alone; it would cause a barren woman to become fruitful. The Italian told Glaser that this precious physic was sent for her Highness Johanna Elizabetha by one who loved her well and would fain serve her. Glaser was desired to sprinkle it on the Duchess's food, but her Highness must be unaware of its presence, for such knowledge would destroy the medicine's efficacy. Glaser replied that he would willingly serve so noble and unfortunate a lady as Johanna Elizabetha, but he refused to take the responsibility of administering the powder. If, however, Ferrari first showed it to the court doctor, Schubart, Glaser would undertake to mix the stuff into some dish for her Highness. At mention of the physician, Ferrari disappeared and did not return. Then Glaser averred he had been set upon near the Judengasse one dark night, soon after Ferrari's visit. Two masked bravos attacked him from behind, and it was only by the chance passing of the town guard that he had escaped with his life. Her Highness heard this story and she smiled bitterly, knowing that her barren state proceeded from a very important omission, and that no powder could be efficacious. And who should know this better than the Grävenitz? the sender of this absurd powder, as the Duchess surmised. 'Poison!' said the Duchess, and despatched a broken-hearted letter to Vienna telling of her bodily peril.
The days lengthened, bright April came with the calling and rustling of Spring in all the air. There were mighty gay doings again at Urach, but Stuttgart held aloof. Things had gone too far; the story of the white powder had played the Grävenitz an evil turn, and people were genuinely horrified at her wickedness. Not a jot cared Wilhelmine. 'The Stuttgarters were such provincials, such shabby, heavy, rude louts,' said the lady from Güstrow. There were no festivities at the castle in Stuttgart. How should there be with the agonised, deserted woman as hostess?
It was her Highness's custom to pray and meditate in solitude for an hour when the day waned. She led a busy, if sedentary, life; sewing her eternal garments of coarse flannel for the poor while Madame de Stafforth read aloud from books of piety. A number of poor people came to the castle, and her Highness was ever ready—nay, eager, to listen to their tales of misery and to distribute alms to these her only courtiers. Then there were the legal reports of the learned doctors-at-law engaged upon her matrimonial business. Johanna Elizabetha welcomed the twilight hour's solitary musing. Poor soul! often she spent this hour on her knees, mourning her sorrow before God.
One evening towards the middle of April, the Duchess had withdrawn as usual to her own apartments leaving Madame de Stafforth in the chief salon reading a sermon by an eminent Swiss divine. The two ladies had felt strangely nervous and anxious during the afternoon, and several times it had seemed to her Highness that she heard stealthy footsteps on the inner gallery of the courtyard, but when she questioned the page-in-waiting whose duty it was to watch at the door of the ante-hall leading to her Highness's rooms, the youth replied that he had seen and heard nothing. The Duchess told herself she was becoming a fearsome, anxious old woman, and she endeavoured to smile down the haunting feeling of some unseen, creeping presence. Still it was with a sense of trepidation that she entered the small room where she was wont to meditate each evening when the day's wearisome, self-imposed labours were ended. This room lay beyond her Highness's sleeping chamber and had a small balcony looking over the Lustgarten.
This apartment was plainly furnished, almost monastic in its simplicity: one chair, a small bureau, a table on which lay a few books of sermons and volumes of theological treatises, and a praying-stool stood against the wall. The only thing recalling the vanities of the world was a mirror let into thepanel above the praying-stool. Indeed, this mirror was a relic of one of poor Johanna Elizabetha's few happy hours. Eberhard Ludwig had ordered the whole room to be panelled with mirrors, having seen some such conceit in a château in France during his travels. He had thought to please her Highness by this attention, but the dull, awkward woman had forbidden the completion of the plan: it was a wrongful waste of money, she averred, and a French vanity! So Eberhard Ludwig had angrily commanded the workmen to desist, and, wounded and offended, he had reflected on his wife's lack of appreciation of the little elegancies of life. True, she had seemed pleased by his thought of her, she had thanked him—but she had declined his present!
The only alteration in the castle which Johanna Elizabetha had ever been known to order had been done, to the surprise of all, some time after the Duke's desertion of his wife and son. The entire suite of apartments which her Highness occupied had been redecorated. The panelling, which was of time-mellowed oak, the Duchess had caused to be painted black, the chairs and tables of her rooms were covered with black brocade, and the window curtains were fashioned of the same sombre material. It was a strange fancy, the exaggeration of a brain strung up, taut and strained to a quivering line on the border of insanity. Yet the Duchess was not mad, only sad to desperation, utterly humiliated, shuddering with despair and shame. Possibly the unhappy woman, shut into the silence of her dumb personality, had here sought to give expression to her voiceless agony.
The effect of these black walls, black furniture, black hangings, was odiously funereal. Some one said that her Highness should complete the picture of mourning by donning the sinister trappings of the Swabian widow—the bound brow, the nunlike hood, the swathing band with which South German widows of mediæval times hid their lips from the sight of all men, in token of their bereavement and enforced chastity.
Her Highness looked anxiously round her sleeping apartment as she passed through. To her overstrung nerves each darker shadow held an evil menace. A breeze crept inthrough the open casement, and swayed the heavy black curtains round her Highness's bed, and she started back, thinking that some hostile hand had moved the folds. In vain she told herself how baseless were her fears. She chid herself for a craven, but her heart still fluttered fearfully, and her lips were a-tremble when she reached the little room. She sank down in her chair with a sigh of relief. Here in this little room, she reasoned, there could be nothing to fear; here were no shadowy corners where a lurking enemy might hide.
'O God! O God!' she wailed suddenly aloud, 'am I going mad that I should tremble at a gust of wind, that I should suffer this insane consciousness of some haunting presence near me when I know I am, in truth, alone and safe?' She covered her face with her hands.
'Your Highness,' came a voice, and the unhappy woman started to her feet in renewed alarm—'Your Highness, have I permission to depart now? Monsieur de Stafforth wishes me to assist at a supper he gives this evening. As your Highness knows, my husband is very harsh to me since the Duke dismissed him, and indeed I dare not be late.'
It was Madame de Stafforth who, having finished reading, had come to take leave of the Duchess.
'Alas!' said her Highness sadly, 'I am not permitted to bear my sorrow alone; my friends must suffer also.'
'Ah! Madame,' said the little moth-coloured woman tenderly, 'we would all suffer joyfully, could we ease your Highness; but think, Madame! you, at least, have one great happiness: to all women it is not given to bear a son, and the Erbprinz grows stronger each day.'
Poor little Madame de Stafforth! The tragedy of her life lay in her words. She was childless; and Stafforth reproached her—nay, taunted her daily with this, for he desired an heir to carry on his new nobility.
'Forgive me, dear friend; indeed I am blessed. And my son grows stronger, you really think?'
Johanna Elizabeth's face lit with a mother's tenderness, and the two ladies plunged into a detailed discourse on theErbprinz's health. At length Madame de Stafforth took her leave.
'Shall I send any one to your Highness?' she asked as she reached the door.
The Duchess's terrors had been allayed by the familiar discussion of the Erbprinz's ailments, but a thrill of nameless fear passed through her when she remembered she would be alone again in her sombre apartment. But this was weakness! What had she read in the Swiss sermon? 'In the hands of God are all things. It is blasphemy to fear darkness, solitude, or the evil machinations of men. All is in the Great Grasp, and each happening is made and directed by God.' The solemn words came back to her now.
'Dear Madame de Stafforth, I can ring when I wish for any one. Good night, and God bless you!' she said, and laid her hand upon the small silver hand-bell which was on the bureau near her.
When the sound of Madame de Stafforth's footsteps ceased, her Highness turned to the books on the table and sought the volume of Swiss sermons; but it was not there; evidently Madame de Stafforth had forgotten to bring it from the salon. The Duchess decided to fetch it, but she lingered a moment, for it was unaccountably disagreeable to her to pass through the half-light of her sleeping apartment.
'In the hands of God are all things!' she murmured, and with firm step she moved towards the sombre chamber. Once more she thought she saw the bed-curtains sway; she fancied she heard a movement behind her. 'It is blasphemy to fear,' she said, but she felt her brow moisten with the sweat of terror.
She found the book, and resolutely re-entered the sleeping-room. She would not allow her eyes to wander to the bed-hangings, nor to search the dusky corners of the chamber. She passed on, and, gaining the little study, laid the book open on the table, and, leaning her head on her hands, began to read; but she could not fix her attention on the page before her. She was tortured by faint stirrings, by scarcely perceptible sounds, by an eerie feeling of some lurking presence always behind her.
At length she could bear it no longer. She closed the book and rose, intending to ring the hand-bell and summon her attendants, but the words of the sermon echoed in her brain: 'It is blasphemy to fear,' and she felt ashamed of her impulse. She turned, and, going to the praying-stool, kneeled in prayer.
'Give me strength, O God! to resist this baseless terror,' she prayed. 'In thy hands are all things!' Yet her anxiety was unsoothed, and the dread of madness came to her, but with it grew a brave defiance: she would not go mad, she would not! She saw herself a prisoner in some castle, kept alive and well treated, perhaps, but a piteous object, a thing for all to point at—'the mad Duchess!' And the Grävenitz at Stuttgart a legal Duchess. She believed a Prince could put away an insane wife. 'Not madness, kind Jesus!' she prayed. Her heart was wrung in agony as she pictured her son, the Erbprinz, taunted perhaps by the mention of his mother's madness. 'All is in the Great Grasp, and each happening is made and directed by God.' 'O Christ,' she prayed, 'I believe, I trust, I will not blaspheme by fear; no madness can strike me down while I believe and pray.' She lifted her hot face from her hands, calmed, soothed, brave once more. She was rising from her knees, and the movement brought her eyes on a level with the mirror panel. As one turned to stone, she stood looking into the mirror, for it reflected one corner of her bed in the next room, and the fading light fell on something white which pushed aside the black brocade bed-curtain—a large yellow-white hand holding a small gleaming knife. The Duchess, still with the dread of insanity upon her, told herself that it was an hallucination, a delusion, the frenzied working of her overwrought brain. She gathered her courage and fixed her eyes on the mirror, which showed her what she conceived to be a phantom. The hand was large, with hair growing hideously over it, and jagged, bitten nails—she could see this distinctly, for the light fell from the window full on the black curtain, and showed up the yellow hand. Fascinated, she gazed into the mirror, wondering the while why, now that the horror actually confronted her, she felt so little fear, whereas before she had started and trembled at eachgust of wind. Now the hand emerged further from out the hangings. An arm in a brown sleeve appeared. Then the curtains parted, and her Highness saw a ferret-like face appear. She knew that this was no phantom. Swiftly she calculated the distance between her and the hand-bell. She remembered that only her tiring-maid would come in answer to the usual daily summons. If this man was indeed an assassin, he would do his work immediately; kill her ere the woman could come, and the unsuspecting maid herself might easily be silenced with one stab from that pointed dagger. All this the Duchess realised in a flash. She had never thought so rapidly in her life. No! she must not ring; she must dupe the murderer! Her eyes met the assassin's in the mirror, but she had the strength to return the gaze in an abstracted fashion, so that the man should be uncertain whether she had seen him, or whether the mirror had failed, by some strange chance, to transmit his reflection. Instinctively she felt that her death-warrant would be signed did the man know her to be aware of his presence. She moved towards the table; thus she was out of the mirror's range, and she therefore could not see what the man was doing in the adjoining apartment. 'Dupe him! escape by ruse! get out of the rooms to the ante-hall, let him think I am coming back!' Dully this thought struggled in her mind. With extraordinary calmness she commenced to move the books on the table, purposely rustling the pages. Then suddenly she knew her only way of escape.
'Curious!' she said aloud; 'I thought my other book was here. I have left it next door. I must find it and return to read and rest.' As she said the words she walked into the sleeping-room. 'God give me strength not to look towards the bed,' she prayed silently. 'Lord, in thy hands are all things. It is blasphemy to fear.'
Now she was in the shadowy bedroom; she moved slowly across, saying again aloud: 'I will fetch the volume and return.' As the words left her lips she realised she had spoken in French; her ruse was useless then! The murderer was probably some illiterate scoundrel; how should he comprehend? But her dogged, methodical nature stood her in good stead. If Johanna Elizabetha began anything, sheinvariably completed her task; so although she imagined her strategy spoiled through her use of the French language, she kept steadily moving across the large dark room. As she gained the door leading to the audience-chamber she heard the man's bitten, jagged nails scrape the silk brocade of the hangings. He had pushed aside the curtains, then—he was following her! 'God give me strength,' she prayed again. With unhurried step she passed across the whole length of the long audience-chamber, and gently opened the door of the ante-hall. The page-in-waiting, a slight child of fourteen years, sprang to his feet, bowing deeply, as her Highness entered.
'Are you alone?' said the Duchess quietly. 'Is no lackey in waiting?'
'No, your Highness; I have had the honour to guard your Highness alone for the last few minutes. There is no one else at all,' the boy replied, proud of the trust reposed in him.
'I cannot give up this child to the assassin's dagger,' thought the Duchess.
To her strained hearing there seemed to be a creeping movement behind her. Quickly she pulled the key from the lock on the inner door of the audience-chamber, and with trembling hand fitted it into the keyhole on the ante-hall side.
'Quick, boy! fasten the other door leading to my apartment!' she whispered.
The youth ran forward to do her bidding, and as she heard the bolt fall under his hand she succeeded in turning the key in the lock noiselessly.
'Call the guard! Quick! quick!'
Instantly the page rushed off, and once more Johanna Elizabetha was alone with the owner of that yellow, hairy hand, but with a bolted door between her and death this time. Still she held the door-handle firmly, and she felt it being gently tried from inside. Then she heard distinctly stealthy footsteps stealing away across the audience-chamber.
The guard clattered into the ante-hall—fifty men in yellow and silver uniforms, with drawn swords, and pistols showing grimly at their sides. The captain of the guard inquiredher Highness's pleasure. The page had summoned him, saying her Highness was in danger of her life.
'Yes,' said Johanna Elizabetha shortly, 'assassination. Search my apartments, the doors are locked.'
The men poured in: some straight through the audience-chamber, others through the narrow corridor leading round at the back of the Duchess's sleeping apartment. In a short time the captain returned.
'We have found no one, your Highness; yet I have left my men to search again, though in truth we have inspected every inch of all the rooms.'
He looked at Johanna Elizabetha curiously as he spoke. Did he guess her mad? She felt guilty, suspected. Could that horrid vision, that creeping, lurking man, have been a phantom? A thing, then, of her own creation, not a ghost of the castle—no, a spectre of her own!
'You cannot have searched everywhere,' she said. 'There are no ghosts in the castle save the White Lady, and I saw a man skulking in my apartments.'
'Your Highness, the search has——,' he began.
'I will direct your men, Monsieur,' she interrupted hurriedly, and entered the audience-chamber. Carefully the soldiers went through the rooms again, probing each dark corner and under the hangings with their swords, but no one was to be found. The sweat stood on her Highness's brow. She knew she would give all she possessed for the man to be discovered. If he were not, she knew that she must become insane—nay, she would be proved already mad to her own knowledge.
Suddenly a shout went up from the soldiers who had penetrated to her Highness's praying-room, which, owing to its bareness and small size, had received at first but a cursory glance from the searchers.
Against the balustrade in the angle of the small balcony the murderer crouched. The soldiers dragged him forward and flung him, an unresisting, trembling heap, on to the middle of the floor. Her Highness hearing the commotion hurried forward.
'You have found him, then? Oh, thank God!' she cried.
'Pardon, pardon, by your mother's heart, I implore!' moaned the miserable wretch, dragging himself like a crawling, wriggling animal towards the Duchess. He was immediately hauled back by the soldiers.
'Stand up, you worm, and give account of yourself,' said the captain sternly, bestowing a kick on the man's ribs.
'I meant no harm! By Christ! I meant no harm!' the prisoner wailed.
'How came you in her Highness's apartments? Speak!'
'I am a stranger in Stuttgart,' replied the man.
'Here's a lie for you,' broke in a trooper; 'he's the Grävenitz's private servant. I have often seen him at Tübingen.'
'Yes! yes! yes! I am the Comtesse d'Urach's secretary; but I return to Italy soon, and I wished to see the Duchess's famous black rooms before I left! Curiosity has been my undoing! Pardon! pardon!'
'If you only wanted to see my rooms,' said her Highness gently, 'why did you hide from me beneath the hangings? Why had you a poignard in your hand?'
'I had no poignard! By the Mother of God! I had no poignard,' he whined.
'It is in his girdle, your Highness,' said the trooper, drawing forth the dagger from the man's belt.
'I had a poignard in my girdle, but I meant no harm! I meant no harm! Madame, you cannot think I would have hurt you? Oh, mercy! mercy!' Once more he threw himself at the Duchess's feet. 'I hid indeed. O Madame! I feared your displeasure. Have mercy on me! I only wished to see your beautiful black rooms before I went back to Italy. When your Highness spoke of fetching the book——' The Duchess started. Of course the man was an Italian, and he understood French; that was how her plan had not miscarried, as she feared it had, when she thought her adversary was some local cut-throat—'when your Highness spoke, I thought I might escape while your Highness was away, and then the doors were bolted and the guard came. Oh, mercy!'
'Poor soul, let him go,' said Johanna Elizabetha gently.
'Your Highness, he shall go—to prison, till he is hanged. My man here tells me he is the person who gave poison to Kitchenmaster Glaser to sprinkle in your Highness's food,' the captain answered.
'Alas! how evil are men's hearts,' sighed the Duchess. 'Take him, then, but treat him gently. He says he meant no harm.'
Thenews of the discovery of Ferrari in her Highness's apartments spread through Stuttgart during the evening, and there arose a wave of intense indignation. The Grävenitz was loudly denounced as the instigator of the attempted crime, and a mob gathered before the Jägerhaus, clamouring in their fierce, blind rage to destroy the house where the hated woman had resided. The riot grew so serious that it was necessary to call out the town guard, and though the knot of violent rioters was easily dispersed by the soldiers, still during the whole night Stuttgart continued in an uproar, and fears of a dangerous disturbance were entertained.
Messengers sped away to Urach, carrying the news of Ferrari's attempt and exaggerated reports of the unquiet state of the town.
Early on the following morning Forstner, who resided for the most part at Stuttgart, finding the Grävenitz court little to his liking, arrived at Urach, and pleading urgent private business was immediately admitted to his Highness's audience-chamber.
Wilhelmine from her powdering-closet could hear Forstner's deep voice, but, though she much desired it, she could not distinguish the words. Once she caught the name 'Ferrari,' and then again 'her Highness.' Could it be the old story of Glaser and the white powder? she wondered. Impatiently she tapped her foot on the ground. She called Maria and inquired if Ferrari was in the castle. She was told he had left Urach early on the preceding morning and had not been seen since. Wilhelmine grew anxious at this. It struck her disagreeably that the absent Italian should be the subject of Forstner's early visit. Ferrari had been strangely gloomy andpreoccupied of late, she had remarked. Indeed, he had brooded in this fashion ever since the Glaser affair. True, Wilhelmine had taunted him cruelly with his failure, and the man always took her lightest word to heart. He had conceived an affection for her which was a trifle inconvenient—a jealous, fierce affection made grotesque by his ugly, undersized person.
Eberhard Ludwig entered the powdering closet. His face was deadly pale, and his eyes held a look of horror and disgust which warned Wilhelmine of some grave occurrence.
'I have news of serious import, Madame,' he said coldly; 'kindly dismiss your serving-woman. I wish to speak to you in private.'
Maria left the room with a sniff; she was accustomed to better treatment. In fact, she bade fair to become a tyrant to her lenient mistress.
'Mon Prince!' cried Wilhelmine as the woman disappeared, 'whatever the news, you seem to show me an ugly frown. I, at least, cannot have displeased my beloved master, for I have not left his side, and our commune together cannot have given him offence.' She spoke lightly, but she watched his Highness's stern face anxiously. It softened at her words.
'Ah, Wilhelmine, beloved, a terrible thing has happened! And you are gravely accused.' Then he poured forth the whole story of Ferrari's attempt. Wilhelmine listened in silence; she knew that his accusation was extremely serious, and the facts most difficult to explain away. To her consternation she saw that his Highness himself half suspected her of having a hand in the matter.
'Every criminal is allowed to answer his accuser,' she said, when Eberhard Ludwig finished his narration. He started forward.
'Accuser! Wilhelmine, am I your accuser? Do you think I doubt you? but, O God! the facts are black against you.'
'Your words do not accuse me, Eberhard,' she answered; 'but your eyes and the stern soul behind them accuse me. Nay, listen; how often have you praised me, calling me a woman of much intelligence? Now, I ask you, consider for a moment how a woman, gifted with even a spark of thissame intelligence, could act so foolishly as to have her declared enemy, the obstacle to her happiness, removed by the poignard of a servant well known to be in her employ? That is one plea I would put forward, Monseigneur. Then again, should I select the moment to contrive her Highness's death when the world is ringing with that preposterous Glaser story? I am branded as a bigamist,' she added bitterly; 'do you fancy I wish to add the title murderess to my name?'
'But explain the circumstance of your servant being discovered, poignard in hand, lurking in the Princess Johanna Elizabetha's rooms. And oh! Wilhelmine, forgive me; but this preposterous Glaser story, as you call it, has never been properly explained. You have laughed, and I have put the matter out of my thoughts; but now—O beloved! it is so terrible to doubt you, but——'
Wilhelmine was unprepared for this retrospective attack. She hesitated, and his Highness's face grew dark.
'I really must ask you to explain,' he said harshly, moving away from her.
'Eberhard,' she said brokenly, 'I sent the powder to the Duchess.'
Serenissimus started forward. 'You confess? O my God!' he cried.
'Yes; I will tell you. The powder was a harmless philtre. I brewed a magic draught which causes whoever drinks it to forget the being they love, and become enamoured of the first person they see. O Eberhard, believe me!'
'Fairy tales!' he almost laughed. 'But why given in secret? why given at all?' he demanded.
'If she forgot you, forgot your charm, beloved, she would be happy again. I had pity on her!'
It was poison she had sent, and even to herself her story seemed too extravagant for credence. To her surprise, however, his Highness believed her in this.
'Well, and for the rest? for Ferrari's being hidden in the castle?' he questioned.
'Call Maria and ask her if I was aware that the madman had left Urach. She can vouch that I thought him to be here.'
'Why did he do this thing?' said the Duke.
'What explanation did he offer?' she queried hurriedly.
'That he wished to see the black rooms!' he replied.
'Well, but surely that is explanation enough? You know the man's extraordinary love of beauty, his curious seeking for unusual furniture. He is mad, Eberhard; I tell you he is mad! We must save him from prison and send him back to Italy.' She spoke so naturally, so easily, that his Highness felt that sense of the unaccustomed, the unknown evil, the grim suspicion of crime fall away, and an immense relief take its place.
'Of course, of course!' he said hurriedly; 'I was frightened by that fool Forstner. Forgive me for my insane suspicion.' And he hastened away to assure Forstner of the sheer absurdity of this accusation.
Perhaps he would have been a trifle shaken in his confidence had he seen Wilhelmine fall back in her chair, breathing hard like some wild animal who had escaped the hunter's knife by a hair's-breadth.
If Serenissimus was thus easily appeased, the authorities and citizens of Stuttgart were not to be put off with a mere tale. Also Johanna Elizabetha's friends and partisans were loud in their accusations of the Grävenitz. Ferrari had been released from prison by the Duke's command. The man was mad, his Highness averred, and it was but merciful to send him back to Italy. It leaked out that the Italian had left Wirtemberg, but it was whispered that he carried a large sum of gold with him.
'Blood money,' said the Stuttgarters, and their indignation grew apace. Schütz wrote from Vienna that things were going badly for the Grävenitz. The Emperor had been informed of the Ferrari affair, and was reported to have expressed his opinion in no measured terms. In fact, Schütz strongly advised the Countess of Urach to leave Wirtemberg for a time, but the lady remained firm. 'Go, I will not, until I am obliged, and that is not yet,' she declared.
So the days passed as usual at Urach, outwardly. The Duke shot roebuck daily in the early morning, the Countess often accompanying him. Later, Serenissimus would rideyoung and fiery horses; but in this the Countess did not take part, she was but a poor horsewoman. Then came a delicious banquet, with the Countess of Urach's musicians in attendance discoursing fair melodies.
During the afternoon his Highness drove eight, ten, and sometimes twelve horses together, thundering through the country, and the peasants soon learnt to associate their heretofore beloved ruler with clouds of dust and ruthless speed. A demon driver rushing past, who, they said, would crush them were they not quick to fly to safety in their houses or fields.
A demon driver with a beautiful, haughty-faced woman beside him. Verily an appalling picture to the sleepy Swabian peasant accustomed to the heavy swaying motion of quiet oxen or laborious cart-horses.
Each evening at the castle of Urach there were merry doings: dancing, cards, and music. It all seemed gay and secure enough, but there was unrest beneath this outward peace, an anxious feeling in the revellers' hearts. Madame de Ruth chattered wittily; Zollern, gallant and wise, made subtle ironic speeches; Wilhelmine sang, Serenissimus adored, the Sittmanns and the parasites were chorus to this—a chorus a little out of tune at times, perchance, but passable.
At length the imperial ultimatum arrived, and, like a card house blown by a strong man's breath, the sham court fell, and the Queen of Hearts knew that the game was played out.
'Wilhelmine, Countess Grävenitz, masquerading under the title of Countess of Urach, is hereby declared an exile from all countries under our suzerainty, nor can she hold property in these aforementioned countries, nor call for the law's protection. From the date of this writing she is given six days wherein to leave Wirtemberg. After the expiration of this term she must, an she remaineth in the land, stand her trial for bigamy, treason, and implication in attempted murder.'—Signed and sealed by the Emperor this.
There was no possible gainsaying; already the time allotted to her for flight was exceeded, and at any moment she might be arrested by the imperial order.
She fled to Schaffhausen once more, and in Stuttgart therewas great rejoicing; but the joy was dashed to the ground when the news came that Serenissimus had also disappeared. Had he fled with his evil mistress, then? It was positively averred, however, that she had gone alone with Madame de Ruth. Witchcraft, of course! The Grävenitzin had bewitched herself once before when she had disappeared for three days from the old castle. His Highness himself had said openly that she had returned to him in a flash of lightning. What more likely than that she should have spirited Serenissimus away with her to Switzerland?
'Nonsense,' said the Duchess-mother at Stetten; 'Eberhard is roaming in the woods, crying to the trees that he is a broken-hearted martyr!' And she hurried to Urach, taking up her abode in the very apartments which Wilhelmine had just vacated. It is on record that her maternal Highness caused the rooms to be swept and garnished, ere she entered, as though they were infected with the pest. 'So they are,' quoth this plain-speaking dame, 'with the pest of vice!'
It is to be supposed that the Duchess-mother was right in her surmise regarding her son's forest wanderings, for a messenger arrived from Urach saying Serenissimus would re-enter Stuttgart with his mother in a few days' time; which he did, and was solemnly and publicly reconciled to the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha. The grateful burghers voted their Duke a free present of forty thousand gulden on his return, and to his Duchess ten thousand gulden.
The Duchess-mother is reported to have remarked that, of a truth, it had been fitting had they paid her back a portion of the war indemnity. 'But it does not matter,' she said, 'so long as that absurd boy, my son Eberhard, remains at his duties in future.' Dear, proud, sensible old lady! God rest her well! To her mother's heart, the thirty-seven-year-old Duke of Wirtemberg, hero, traveller, incidentally bigamist, remained eternally 'that absurd boy, my son.'
It was with mingled feelings that Wilhelmine at Schaffhausen heard of Eberhard Ludwig's reconciliation with his wife. Anger and scorn of the man's weakness predominated, but despair and humiliation tortured her as well, and a profound discouragement, which the sound of the rushing, foaming Rhine falls had no power to sooth this time. The enforced inaction was terrible to her. It was her strategy to leave his Highness's passionate letters of excuse and explanation unanswered, and thus she had little wherewith to fill the long summer days. Madame de Ruth was a delightful companion, but Wilhelmine was unresponsive and seemed absorbed in some intricate calculation. She would sit for hours, brooding sombrely. Her eyes, narrowed and serpent-like, gazed at the rushing waters, but when Madame de Ruth remarked on the beauty of the scene she would answer irritably that she was occupied, and only begged for quiet in which to think. Towards the middle of August Schütz arrived from Vienna. He brought with him a document which he prayed Wilhelmine to consider, and to sign if she approved. It was entitled 'Revers de Wilhelmine, Comtesse Grävenitz,' and set forth that she undertook to relinquish all claims upon the Duke of Wirtemberg and his heirs forever. That she recognised any child, born of her relationship to his Highness, to be a bastard, and that she undertook never to return to the court of Wirtemberg. If she bound herself to these conditions, the Emperor, in return, promised to cancel her exile from his fiefs with the sole exception of Wirtemberg. The right to hold property would be given back to her, and she would be released from suspicion of murderous intent. His Majesty even promised her twenty thousand gulden as compensation for any wrong done to her in Wirtemberg.
Wilhelmine hesitated, pondered, and finally despatched Schütz to Stuttgart with a copy of the imperial document. He laid it before the Privy Council, and stated that his client, the Countess Grävenitz, was prepared to accept these proposals, on the condition that Wirtemberg paid her a further sum in compensation for her loss of honour, property, and prospects.
The Privy Council fell into the trap. Anything to be finally rid of the dangerous woman, done with the whole noisome story. They had the example of Mömpelgard before them, and they feared for Wirtemberg to be involved in a similar tangle.
Now Mömpelgard, or Montbéliard, as the French-speaking court named it, was a small principality ruled by Eberhard Ludwig's cousin, Duke Leopold Eberhard of Wirtemberg, a liegeman of Louisxiv.of France, and a man of strange notions. He had been reared in the religion of Mahomet, and with the faith he held the customs of Islam. Thus he had married three women at once, legally, as he averred; and in any case, the three wives lived in splendour at Mömpelgard's castle. These ladies had had issue, and the succession to the Mömpelgard honours was complicated.
Naturally Stuttgart's Geheimräthe, with this cousinly example in their minds, longed for the Grävenitz to renounce all future claims upon the Dukedom of Wirtemberg, both for herself and for any issue of her 'marriage' with Eberhard Ludwig.
Thus when Schütz conveyed her demand for money as a condition to her renouncement, they listened to the preposterous request, and declared themselves ready to pay the favourite compensation. Schütz returned to Schaffhausen with this news, and was immediately re-despatched to Stuttgart with a demand for two hundred thousand gulden as the price of her renouncement.
The Geheimräthe were aghast. Twenty thousand, nay, even forty thousand, gulden they would pay, but two hundred thousand! This vast sum to be wrung out of the war-impoverished land! Impossible! Besides, it was as much as the marriage-portion of six princesses of Wirtemberg.
The Duke was approached. He retorted that the Countess of Grävenitz was perfectly justified in any demand she chose to make. The Duchess-mother arrived, and spoke, as usual, plainly to her son; but he had not forgotten how his mother had dragged him, like a repentant school-child, from Urach to be reconciled to Johanna Elizabetha. He owed the Duchess-mother a grudge, and paid it by remaining firm concerning the justice of Wilhelmine's claim.
The Privy Council offered her twenty thousand gulden. Then forty thousand. Both sums were refused. 'Two hundred thousand or nothing,' she answered. So the negotiations were broken off.
Meanwhile, had the Geheimräthe but known it, the 'Revers' had long been signed, sealed, and despatched to Vienna.
Wilhelmine again sent Schütz to Stuttgart with the message that, as she had not been given just and fair compensation, she would know how, at a future date, to wring out from Wirtemberg a hundred times the modest sum refused her.
The Geheimräthe, thinking their foe vanquished and the affair at an end, laughed at this threat. They would have trembled had they known that the Grävenitz had a plan, and that their Duke was cognisant of the whole matter.
Wilhelmine, gazing at the waters of the Rhine with her half-closed, serpent-like eyes, sought for some device which should enable her to return to Stuttgart. In the first place, she loved power; in the second, she loved Eberhard Ludwig; in the third, she yearned to outwit her enemy Johanna Elizabetha and her opposers generally. Then she longed once more to defy the Duchess-mother, whom she, at the same time, greatly dreaded.
By this you will see that Wilhelmine was no longer merely the gay, charming, if scheming woman who had come to Wirtemberg sixteen months before. She had developed. Her extraordinary prosperity had poisoned her being. She had grown hard. Could she not achieve the height of power by one road, very well, she was ready to climb back by any circuitous path she could find. For many days her ingenuity and her searchings failed to show her any way back to Stuttgart. It was the pretext for returning which she sought; once there she knew she could grasp power again, and this time she intended to retain it. A chance speech of Madame de Ruth's set her on the track.
'Ah! my dear, we have gone too far; it is perilous to stand on the top of the hill; better to remain near the summit, indeed, but on some sheltered ledge whence we cannot be toppled over. Had I had my way, you should have married some high court dignitary, and as his wife you could have ruled undisturbed.'
'Can the wife of a court dignitary not be forbidden the court?' said Wilhelmine idly.
'Naturally, my dear! The Emperor cannot order an official of a German state to remove his wife from the court where he is employed.'
'Only the prince's wedded wife can be exiled, then?' said Wilhelmine sneeringly.
'My dear! we climbed too high, alas!' Madame de Ruth replied.
Her words had started Wilhelmine on a new track of thought. Married to a courtier holding high office at court, she could return and resume her career. But that would declare her marriage with Eberhard Ludwig to be a farce, she reflected. Still, if this were the only way? In her mental vision she reviewed each courtier, but she could find none fitting for the position of husband in name. Schütz perhaps? She laughed at the very idea. No; the bridegroom must be a man of much breeding and no morals.
She wrote to Schütz requesting him to journey to Schaffhausen on important business. The attorney arrived, and Wilhelmine observed how shabby was his coat, how rusty his general appearance. He was again the pettifogging lawyer in poor circumstances, and Wilhelmine reflected that he would be all the more anxious to serve her in order to return to his ill-gotten splendour at her illegitimate court.
Schütz responded eagerly to her proposal. He acclaimed her a marvel of intelligence, and assured her that in Vienna he would be able to find the very article—a ruined nobleman ready to sell his name to any bidder.
On the day following Schütz's advent at Schaffhausen, Wilhelmine was surprised by a visit from her brother Friedrich, who arrived in a deeply injured mood. Since Wilhelmine left Urach, he averred, he had been treated in a manner all unfitting for an Oberhofmarshall, and the head of the noble family of Grävenitz. Serenissimus had paid him scant attention, and Stafforth had been reinstated as Hofmarshall to the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha—a brand new dignity, complained this Oberhofmarshall of a sham court. He made himself mighty disagreeable to his sister, varying hisbehaviour by outbursts of despair and noisy self-pity, which would have been laughable had they not been so loud, violent, and disturbing. Wilhelmine informed him of her plan, and after many expressions of disapproval, when she had made it clear to him that it would be entirely to his advantage if she succeeded in her design, he gave the ugly plan his brotherly blessing and his sanction as head of the family.
Hereupon Schütz returned to Vienna to seek a bridegroom. In an astonishingly short time, he wrote that he had found an admirably adapted person in the Count Joseph Maria Aloysius Nepomuk von Würben, a gentleman of very old lineage, and ex-owner of a dozen castles in Bohemia, all of which, however, had gradually been converted into gulden, and the gold pieces, in their turn, had vanished into the recollection of many lost card games. This personage, owing to his sad misfortunes, found himself at the age of sixty inhabiting a garret in Vienna.
Schütz wrote that he knew Monsieur le Comte well. They met constantly at the eating-house. He further assured her that Würben was a very pleasant companion. Wilhelmine replied that it was profoundly indifferent to her whether her future husband was an agreeable companion or not, as she intended only to see him once—viz., at her own marriage, after which ceremony he could follow his namesake St. Nepomuk into the waves of the Moldau, for aught she cared! It angered her that Schütz wrote concerning Würben, as though he were in truth to be the companion of her life, and she winced under a new note of familiarity which had crept into the attorney's tone.
Friedrich Grävenitz, who had taken up his abode in Wilhelmine's house at Schaffhausen, made matters worse by what he conceived to be witty and subtle pleasantries. He was never done with his allusions to 'mon cher futur beau frère à Vienne,' and he playfully called his sister 'la petite fiancée.'
On a golden evening of late September, Würben, accompanied by Schütz, arrived at Schaffhausen. Wilhelmine and Madame de Ruth saw the coach crawling up the steep incline which led to the little castle that Zollern had given to thefavourite. With difficulty Madame de Ruth had induced Wilhelmine to offer her future husband one day's hospitality. The wedding was fixed for the morning after Würben's arrival, and the bridegroom had agreed to return to Vienna immediately after the ceremony.
'I have the honour to present to you Monsieur le Comte de Würben!' said Schütz, as he ushered in the noble Bohemian. Würben bowed to the ground, and Wilhelmine and Madame de Ruth bent in grand courtesies.
'Delighted to see you, mon cher! Welcome to our family!' cried Friedrich Grävenitz ostentatiously, departing entirely from the ceremonious code of those days, which hardly permitted the nearest friends to greet each other in this informal manner. But Friedrich Grävenitz prided himself on his friendliness and geniality, and, like most genial persons, he constantly floundered into tactlessness and vulgarity. On this occasion his misplaced affability was received with undisguised disapproval. Madame de Ruth tapped him on the arm with her fan; Wilhelmine shot him a furious, snake-like glance; Würben himself looked surprised, and merely responded with a bow to the effusive speech. Schütz, of course, was the only one to whom it appeared natural, nay, correct. In his world geniality, translated into jocoseness, was indispensable before, during, and after a wedding—even at these scarcely usual nuptials!
Now Würben came forward. 'Mademoiselle de Grävenitz,' he said, 'believe me, I am deeply sensible of the great honour you will do me.'
'Monsieur, I thank you,' began Wilhelmine; but Friedrich Grävenitz interposed pompously:
'As the head of the family, Monsieur, I wish to express to you my pleasure at the thought of my sister bearing your ancient name.'
'My name is much at Mademoiselle your sister's service,' responded Würben; and Madame de Ruth surprised a covert sneer on the old roué's lips.
'Come, mes amis!' she cried, 'the travellers must be in need of refreshment. Will you not repair to the guest-chamber, gentlemen? and when you have removed the dustof travel from your clothes, we will partake of an early supper.'
'Madame de Ruth, I will escort the gentlemen to their apartments, if they wish it,' said Friedrich pompously, opening his eyes wide in what he thought was a reproving look, but in truth was only angrily foolish.
'Thank you, Friedrich. I will tell you when I wish your assistance,' said Wilhelmine calmly. 'Dear Madame de Ruth, you are right. I think Baron Schütz knows the way to the guest-chamber? or shall I tell my brother to summon a lackey?' Her tone was haughty to insolence. The irritation, the disgust, the hatred of her odious though necessary plan, made her mood evil. She was grateful to Würben for his silence, and his fine, if somewhat contemptuous manner, and she bestowed a smile on him as he passed out of the room.
A constrained silence fell on the remaining three. Wilhelmine leaned back in the chair into which she had sunk directly Schütz and Würben disappeared; her elbows rested on the chair-arms, and her fingers were pressed together at the points in an attitude of fastidious, artificial prayer. Madame de Ruth fanned herself slowly and watched Friedrich Grävenitz, who stood paring his nails with a small file he had taken from his pocket.
'I certainly do not like your way towards me, Wilhelmine,' he broke forth, puffing out his fine torso. 'You show a spirit which is not nice towards the head of your family! I think——'
'Dear Friedrich, if you could but realise that I do not care what you think,' Wilhelmine interrupted icily.
'And your manner was not kind to Würben—a nice man, I like him!' said her brother in an almost ecstatic tone.
'How fortunate!' she called after Friedrich's retreating figure, as he strode across the room with such pompous haste that the affairs of the whole Empire might have waited his directions.
The two ladies smiled at one another wearily when he had gone; then, without honouring this self-sufficient person with a word of comment, they fell to discussing Würben. This Bohemian nobleman was not an altogether unpleasing personality. Of middle height, he had a stoop which caused him to appear short; it was not the stoop of the scholar, but that bend which ill-health, caused by debauch, often gives to a comparatively young man. His face was sallow, hollow beneath the eyes, emaciated between chin and cheek-bone. The brown eyes were feverishly bright and a trifle blood-shot. The well-shaven mouth had loose, sensual lips, and the teeth were large and discoloured. And yet one knew that this man, repulsive though he had become, must have been a youth of promise and some personal beauty; and his manner betokened the man of breeding, and one with knowledge of the great world. His sneer at the unholy bargain he was about to make told Madame de Ruth that he was fully aware of the degradation of it. An admirably adapted person for the purpose, she reflected; for, being ashamed of his bargain, he would hide in Vienna, content so long as he had sufficient money to risk at l'hombre and faro. This she and Wilhelmine discussed while Schütz and Würben were upstairs removing their dusty garments.
Suddenly Friedrich Grävenitz burst into the room. 'His Highness has just ridden up to the door! This is really most inconvenient, most difficult for me.' He spoke loudly.
'Hush! be careful! Würben must not hear,' implored Madame de Ruth, while Wilhelmine sprang up. She breathed in laboured gasps, her eyes fixed wildly on her brother.
'His Highness? You are mad, Friedrich! or is this some absurd plot against me?' She turned on her brother fiercely. 'Is this some foolishness you have arranged?'
'It has nothing to do with me. I am never consulted,' he began; but his further utterance was cut short, for Eberhard Ludwig entered unannounced.
'Leave us together,' he said shortly. 'For God's sake, Madame de Ruth, manage that I may speak with her undisturbed.' Madame de Ruth hurried Friedrich Grävenitz away with scant ceremony.
'My beloved! oh, to see you again!' Serenissimus clasped her to him. 'Tell me you are mine, as you were at Urach! Am I in time to hinder this terrible sacrilege?'
She told him that the marriage had not yet taken place, that it was for the morrow.
'It cannot be; you are my wife by the laws of God and man! I cannot suffer you to be called the wife of another. Tell me that you will not do this thing. Wilhelmine, my beloved, you cannot—you cannot——' He held her hand in his, speaking rapidly, indistinctly.
'There is no other way,' she said sadly.
'But it is not possible! You cannot, it is a shameful thing. I forbid you to do it. I will never leave you again. My son may reign at Stuttgart. See, beloved, we will live here together—live out our days in peace and love. It shall be a poem, an idyll—far from all interruptions, far from intrigues!'
He looked into her face with shining eyes, but he found there no answering spark of enthusiasm. Dropping her hand he turned away. She was aghast. True, she loved Eberhard Ludwig, but she realised at that moment how much more potent was her love of splendour and power. What! to drag out her life at Schaffhausen—even with him at her side? No, it was impossible.
'Eberhard, be reasonable. This marriage is no marriage, it is simply the purchase of a name. You know well enough the conditions which are accepted by Würben. Twenty thousand gulden on the day of our contract, twelve thousand gulden a year for his life. Various fine titles and court charges, provided he undertakes never to appear in Stuttgart, never to claim his marriage rights! He is to sign this document in the presence of the lawyers to-morrow before our——' she hesitated, 'before our marriage.'
'But you will vow before God to love and obey this man; you will give him your hand and kneel with him in prayer. Something of the sanctity of our true vows will be filched away. Sacred you are to me for ever, but oh! this will be desecration! you cannot, you must not——' he moaned.
'You knew this before. You knew and approved, and now you hinder the completion of the only plan by which I can return to you. You cannot give up your Dukedom, you cannot leave Stuttgart, and we cannot live apart.' She spoke harshly.
'But is Stuttgart so much to you? Wilhelmine, do you love me only as Duke of Wirtemberg?' His eyes were full of tears. 'Alas! I am the most miserable of men.'
'Eberhard, heart of my life, look in my face and see if I love you! But because I love you I dare not take you away from your great position, from your ambition.'
'Ambition,' he broke in, 'ambition! I am ready to renounce everything——'
'Will you let yourself sink into a mooning poet, my hero of great battles? No! you shall go back, dear love—back to your grand, soldier's life! See, I will stay here and dream of you, if you will not let me take the only path back to Wirtemberg. You shall write to me, sometimes send me a poem, a jewel perhaps—but we shall be parted! O Eberhard!' She sighed deeply, but her strange, hard eyes watched him narrowly. He turned away his face. She saw that her reminder of his military ambition had succeeded as she expected.
'You are right. Alas! this horrible degradation, this masquerading before God—and yet it is the only way.'
Her arms stole round him. Against his cheek he felt her smooth skin, her warm lips sought his.
'I love you, only you,' she whispered. 'In a few days I follow you to Stuttgart. Come to me!'
He flung her from him almost roughly.
'Not now! God in heaven! not now! Can you dream that at such a time I could? It would make the hideous bargain you contemplate to-morrow one degree more vile.' He turned from her and fled. In a moment she heard the clatter of his horse's hoofs in the courtyard.