Hon. Marie Hay

'And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the Princess he loved.'

Abt Vogler.

Five leagues north of Stuttgart, in the heart of the forest, stood the small hunting castle, the Erlachhof, whither Eberhard Ludwig often fled from the world and for many peaceful days lived the life of hunter. In these woods he wandered in early spring, here on summer nights he had slept beneath the trees, dreaming the dreams of his poet nature.

The Erlachhof had been greatly rebuilt, his Highness having commanded many alterations and improvements in the old castle. Since the year 1704 the various works had progressed right well. The gardens were already famous far and wide, and all Europe had added to their wealth: tulips from Holland, carnations and roses from France, oleanders and passion-flowers from Italy, while Spain had furnished orange-trees and myrtles. And here it was that Wilhelmine decided the great palace should be built.

The Erlachhof, from a gentle, simple, old-world German maiden, was to be transformed into a queen among palaces. Thus the daring favourite willed it: a princely pleasure-house to rival Versailles.

The Italian architect Frisoni was called. An artist of no mean merit, and pupil of Jules Hardouin Mansard, the chief architect of Versailles, where Frisoni had worked at the plans together with his master. The Italian arrived: a small, dapper man, ridiculous in his huge powdered wig, his little brown monkey face peering out of the curled white locks. Her Excellency desired a palace on the same model as the fine French palazzo? Nothing easier! No? An original design, then, but of that style? Ah! more facile still! Cost? A trifle to so noble and magnificent a prince as Monseigneur Altissimo the Duke of Wirtemberg. One almost expected the vast structure to rise from the ground in a night, so easy did it seem from the man's account!

The German gentlemen employed at the Erlachhof were deposed from power, and their dominion given over to Frisoni. Never was there such a stir in Wirtemberg. All the quarries rendered stone. Each village sent its most skilled workmen, and Frisoni despatched messengers to Italy to summon all the disengaged talent to the tremendous enterprise. In swarms they arrived—black-browed, olive-skinned, chattering like apes. And the little monkey in the flowing white peruke took direction. But first, the spiritual needs of the workmen must be considered; and the GrÄvenitz, raging with impatience in Stuttgart, was forced to look on while a Catholic chapel was built near the Erlachhof, ere ever the palace was begun.

The Wirtemberg workmen murmured, grumbled, finally mutinied. They would not work with chattering idolaters.

'Let them go, the German louts,' said Frisoni; 'I have better workmen in Italy.' So a new army arrived.

'Popery in our midst! The witch is bringing back Antichrist to Wirtemberg!' said Stuttgart.

The GeheimrÄthe informed Serenissimus that Frisoni's monetary demands were excessive. Forstner was despatched to look into the affair. He was appointed Grand Master of the works. Frisoni raged. The gulden had a way of flowing into Forstner's pocket, and, so Frisoni vowed, but few came out again.

Constantly the Duke and the Landhofmeisterin thundered up to the Erlachhof in their coach and six. Three times a week the favourite flew into a passion and rated Forstner for the tardiness of the building. He referred her to Frisoni, who referred her back to the Grand Master of the works. The plans were completed, the men worked hard, yet delays were frequent, he owned; but the builders, knowing themselves worthy of their hire, struck work when they went unpaid.

'Unpaid?' roared the Duke; 'when I have disbursed four hundred thousand gulden?' 'Look into the matter, your Highness, and you will know,' answered the architect.

Forstner was arraigned at Stuttgart. He arrived, accompanied by a secretary and several big ledgers. The accounts seemed in order, certainly.

'Justice!' implored poor Forstner, 'for my honour as a gentleman!'

'Ask the workmen!' shrieked Frisoni, and they summoned a deputation of the Italian stone-cutters. They swore they had not been paid for months. The Madonna and all the saints knew how they starved.

'Where is the money?' asked the perplexed Duke, and was answered by so many contending truths from each side that he could but be aware that some one, many, or all parties were lying.

Obviously some one must be removed in order to simplify this tangle, but who? 'Who is guilty?' mourned Serenissimus. The Landhofmeisterin's argument was clear enough: 'We cannot waste time in seeking the criminal. Some one has to disappear from the scene; exit therefore the least useful! Probably Frisoni lies, but he is an admirable architect. Surely the Italian workmen lie; they do not look like starving creatures, but they are wonderful masons. Forstner is of no use to me; on the contrary, he incommodes me with his virtuous reasonings. Therefore, exit Forstner!'

'My honour is wounded, I will depart!' wailed this estimable personage; and he forthwith craved Eberhard Ludwig's permission to leave Wirtemberg.

'God speed you hence!' cried the Landhofmeisterin; and Forstner departed, thinking he went of his own free will.

'My four hundred thousand gulden!' bewailed Serenissimus.

'Procure more from the GeheimrÄthe, and refuse to pay arrears to the workmen,' counselled Wilhelmine. Which course being adopted and peacefully accepted by the Italians, it would look as though they had, in truth, received their due. But no one has ever known where went the four hundred thousand gulden. Forstner retired to Strassburg, and for several years there was no word of him.

The building at the Erlachhof went on apace now. Gulden flowed regularly and without stint, and each day more foreigners arrived to give their talents in return for broad gold pieces. Painters, sculptors, gilders came from north and south, and the Wirtembergers looked on aghast. Then was issued an astounding order. His Highness commanded some seven hundred of Stuttgart's rich merchants and burghers, also each trade guild in the country, to construct at their expense a number of houses near the Erlachhof. In this arbitrary decree, for the first time, the new palace was officially styled Ludwigsburg, after its lavish creator, Eberhard Ludwig.

The guilds of trade protested loudly, asking what it would advantage them to have houses in Ludwigsburg. The merchants and burghers followed suit. They received scant consideration of their protest. If they would not obey, his Highness would find himself compelled to levy a tax upon them. A tribute so exorbitant as to cripple them for years; whereas did they obey, he promised to purchase each mansion which the builder did not desire to inhabit. It was the better way, and forthwith the building began. But there was a further clause in the ducal mandate: the houses must be constructed according to Frisoni's plans and drawings, approved by his Highness. Again the burghers protested, but they were silenced by the Duke's promise to purchase.

Not only was a magnificent palace to be erected, but a town was to be conjured up as well, and from Frisoni's plans it appeared that it was to be a town of courtiers' houses. Bitter discontent reigned at Stuttgart, and the guards round the JÄgerhaus were doubled.

But there was rejoicing in the GrÄvenitz camp. Things were going admirably for the satellites, the grasping, hungry parasites. Madame de Ruth and Zollern alone might have spoken some moderating word, but the old courtesan was swept off her feet by Wilhelmine's brilliancy, and Zollern dreamed of Ludwigsburg as a new Catholic centre.

Time did not hang heavy on Wilhelmine's hands during the years which elapsed ere the Corps de Logis and the two small pavilions at Ludwigsburg were completed. In spite of the frantic haste with which the work was carried on, it was found impossible for the Duke to take up his residence in his new palace till the spring of 1711.

Meanwhile a new project engrossed the Landhofmeisterin's attention. Although she fully intended to occupy the palace itself, she deemed it expedient to possess an independent castle at Ludwigsburg, and on the foundations of the Schafhof, another small hunting lodge near the old Erlachhof, she caused a miniature summer palace to be erected. This she named La Favorite. It was constructed according to a plan in Mansard's 'ChÂteaux Joyeux.'

The Schafhof had been connected with the Erlachhof by a magnificent avenue of chestnut-trees, which remained for the most part intact save where a few trees had been cut to leave space for the fine terracing on the north side of the new Corps de Logis of Ludwigsburg. Still there was a shady avenue, commencing from the lowest terrace and following the gentle rise of the ground up to the Schafhof. This avenue she of course retained, merely causing the branches to be cut back, in order to leave an unbroken view of La Favorite from the windows of the Corps de Logis.

A host of gardeners laboured at the wood round the ChÂteaux Joyeux, turning the rough ground into a series of gracious flowering parterres.

The interior of Wilhelmine's little palace was a dream of beauty. Every room was panelled in white, and each panel encircled by a graceful design in gold, which terminated in gorgeous devices on the ceilings. For the most part the rooms were curtained with the GrÄvenitz yellow. The floors were a triumph of the wood-inlayer's art, the chairs and tables were of gilt or of inlaid rosewood. It was a house of sunshine: all Wilhelmine's windows looking full southward or westward, while on the colder north and east sides were the domestics' apartments.

At length, in the July of 1711, the Corps de Logis and the small adjoining pavilions were ready for occupation, and the long eastern and western side-wings were so nearly completed that it was possible to lodge the chief personages of the court, and the army of serving men and women. The garden terracing was terminated, and the water for the numerous fountains laid on.

La Favorite was ready for its capricious namesake, and the town of Ludwigsburg counted some two hundred new houses. The old posting inn, formerly a dilapidated peasant's habitation, barnlike and unpromising enough to the traveller, had become a fine mansion with many guest chambers. The peasant innkeeper, who regarded every foreigner as an intruder, was replaced by a magnificent gentleman with condescending manners.

Enterprising venders of all sorts hurried to the new centre of opulence. Already an obsequious personage from Paris had taken up his abode in a room of one of the new houses, and a painted board hanging from his window informed the passers-by that he was permitted to style himself Coiffeur to her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin, to Serenissimus the Duke, and to the court in general. Along with this gentleman arrived several spruce ladies, one of whom was reported to be his wife, but opinions varied as to which of the eight possessed this honour. These demoiselles were expert dressmakers, and plied many other trades necessary for the beautifying of court ladies. A French corset-maker appeared on the scene, and a famous vender of cosmetics. In fact, there were not wanting all the elements which must ever be at hand for serving the whimsies and necessities of noble dames. The titles of these court purveyors were in the Landhofmeisterin's keeping, and were only procurable by payment of a good round sum.

The sun was sinking in a glory over the grim mount of Hohenasperg, that sinister, frowning fortress-prison which threatened conveniently near to Ludwigsburg, ready to lodge those unfortunate enough to incur the displeasure of Serenissimus, or, more accurately, of her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin. The departing sun left a flaming radiancy which hung over the 'mansardÉ' roofs of Ludwigsburg, and was reflected again and again in the waters of the hundred garden fountains. All day a hurrying stream of vehicles had rumbled into the courtyard, setting down the servants and effects of his Highness of Wirtemberg, and of the lady who ruled his destiny. Frisoni was in a mighty pother; he ran round the room excitedly, moving a chair, smoothing out a fold in the curtains, drawing a table to another position. He hopped hither and thither like some gay little monkey. Suddenly a tremendous shout went up from the three thousand Italian workmen who had been permitted to assemble near the gilded gates to witness the arrival of the court.

First came a large detachment of the Silver Guard, which were to take up quarters in the newly completed barracks at Ludwigsburg. Then followed a company of Cadets À Cheval, two hundred youths of noble family attired in crimson uniforms with black velvet slashings and silver braidings. After these rode an hundred equerries to his Highness, uniformed in light blue with silver facings. Then came a file of richly painted coaches conveying the holders of court charges, each coach escorted by four mounted troopers. Then the musicians on white horses with gorgeous red velvet and gold trappings. A second detachment of the Silver Guard numbering about five hundred, and at last the great gilded coach and six hove into sight. On both sides rode Cadets À Cheval, their ordinary crimson and black slashed uniforms embellished by short cloaks of silver cloth, which fell from each youth's shoulders on to the horse's haunches. In the coach sat his Highness on the left, and the Landhofmeisterin on the right, the seat which custom, etiquette, and morality set apart for the Duchess, who, poor soul, mourned in solitude at Stuttgart, while her place in the pageant was taken by the beautiful, evil woman, Wilhelmine von GrÄvenitz. But oh! how lovely she was, this adventuress! She looked indeed well fitted to be the chief personage of this magnificence. Her garments, as usual, were of golden yellow; on her flowing, powdered curls she wore a little round hat with a waving white plume, fastened by a diamond clasp. On her breast glittered the broad riband and the white enamel stag, whose antlers bore the diamond cross of the order of St. Hubertus. The little hat was strangely like a crown; the baton of the Landhofmeisterin's office, which she held in her hand, resembled a sceptre: it was of gold, and ablaze with precious stones. A travesty, no doubt, an absurdity, an insolence, but how fine it all looked! The Duke wore a white satin long-coat, embroidered with gold, and on his breast shone the St. Hubertus stag and cross. Truly the prince of some fable, seated beside a gorgeous princess.

Behind the golden coach followed two hundred life guards, uniformed in white and silver, and with drawn swords. Then came his Highness's forest guards, in green, with silver bandoliers and hunting horns, each with the white St. Hubertus stag and cross embroidered large upon the breast. After these rode the court pages, the Duke's secretaries, the officers of the household. And finally, three companies of the Wirtemberg regiments which had fought at Blenheim under Eberhard Ludwig.

A crowd of peasants from neighbouring villages had gathered outside the gates of Ludwigsburg; they raised a shout when they saw their Duke. He bowed, and the Landhofmeisterin also bent her head in dignified salutation. Immediately the shouting ceased, and a low ominous groan went up, intermingled with sibilant hissings. Wilhelmine grew pale, and shot a glance of hatred towards the peasants. His Highness spoke rapidly in a low tone to the cadet who rode at his elbow. The youth galloped back along the line of the cortÈge, and delivered an order to the captain of the 1st Regiment of Wirtemberg Cavalry. And as the gilded coach rolled in at the palace gates, Wilhelmine heard with satisfaction the howls and curses of the peasant crowd, which was being dispersed by the soldiers' swords.

When the Landhofmeisterin entered the palace of Ludwigsburg, the military brass instruments and drums in the courtyard ceased playing, and as the lovers passed over the threshold a strain from graceful, delicate, stringed instruments greeted them.

'Welcome to our house of harmony!' whispered Serenissimus, bending to kiss his mistress's hand.

Slowly and with dignity they were led by Frisoni through the beautiful rooms—the huge, gilded banqueting hall, the ball-rooms, the withdrawing-rooms, the picture-gallery, the audience-chamber, the card-rooms, the theatre. The little Italian caught the note of Wilhelmine's ceremony, and he showed Ludwigsburg to her as though she were a princess bride, entering for the first time the palace of her new dominions, instead of an enterprising mistress, part designer and wholly inspirer of each nook and corner of a nation's ruin in stone and marble.

They passed up the broad white marble staircase, and Frisoni solemnly conducted them to his Highness's private apartments—the antechamber, the audience-closet, the writing-room, and the sleeping-room.

'The apartments of her Excellency are situated in the west pavilion. If your Highness wishes to inspect them we must pass downstairs once more, to gain the entrance to the pavilion,' he said gravely.

Eberhard Ludwig, smiling, bade him lead the way, though, of a truth, he knew a shorter way by a small door leading through the statue gallery directly from his apartments to the decorously closed pavilion.

In solemn procession, Serenissimus leading the Landhofmeisterin, preceded by Frisoni as guide, passed down the chief stair, and from the lower antehall to the door of the west pavilion. Here were the apartments of the great Landhofmeisterin. On the ground floor the room for her personal attendant, the wardrobe-room, her Excellency's library and business-room, where the various affairs of the Landhofmeisterin's office were to be transacted. Then up a narrow stair to the first floor to a large antechamber, a sleeping-room, a private writing-room, and above another small stair leading to the powdering-room.

All these rooms were little masterpieces of various arts, chief among which that of the wood-inlayer—the floors, the walls, the doors being profusely inlaid with precious woods. Everywhere the arms of Wirtemberg were interwoven with the WÜrben and GrÄvenitz devices, and with the emblems of the chase and of music—symbols of the Duke-hunter and his beloved musician-mistress.

The courtiers who followed his Highness and the Landhofmeisterin expressed their admiration discreetly, Zollern and Madame de Ruth leading the chorus of approval. At length the ceremonious inspection was concluded, and the courtiers hurried away to view their own quarters, leaving her Excellency in the pavilion, and Serenissimus in his sumptuous Corps de Logis.

When the courtiers' steps ceased to echo in the corridor, Wilhelmine drew a little golden key from her bosom and, approaching a panel in the antechamber wall on the first floor, fitted it into a keyhole which was artfully hidden in the intricacies of the inlaid design. She turned the lock and a small door flew open. She stepped through and found herself in the corridor of statues. Directly facing the hidden panel door she found another similar lock masked beneath the outstretched hand of one of the many plaster Amorini. Here again a small door sprang open beneath her touch, and she entered the Duke's sitting-room. Her entry, however, was further hidden by an arras of Gobelin tapestry fitted on a wooden partition running down one side of his Highness's room. At the end nearest the entrance to his sleeping-chamber, a small portion of this partition flew back upon touching a spring, and revealed a narrow doorway. Little wonder that both Eberhard Ludwig and Wilhelmine smiled when the Italian conducted them down and up the staircases and through innumerable rooms ere they reached the apartments of the Landhofmeisterin!

Serenissimus was standing at the window of his writing-room overlooking the courtyard. In his hand was a closely written page, and his face wore a look of distress and perplexity. He turned sharply when he heard Wilhelmine's step, and, flushing deeply, he crushed the paper into the breast of his coat. She was quick to note the movement, and the Duke's evident embarrassment.

'A letter, Monseigneur, which you would hide from me?' she said. Like most women in illegitimate positions she was easily suspicious, and all letters, petitions, every scrap of paper destined for her lover, were carried for inspection to the omnipotent Landhofmeisterin ere they were permitted to reach their destination.

'Yes, Madame, a letter from a private friend,' returned the Duke, his embarrassment turning to anger. 'Ah! something not intended for me? I crave your Highness's forgiveness. I came to say a word of my great happiness in being indeed installed in our House of Harmony,' she sneered bitterly, and turning, would have hurried back to her apartments; but Serenissimus followed her, and laying his hand on her arm drew her towards him.

'There are things in each life which can never be told. Beloved, there is a seal on my lips which honour has impressed with her fair image. I cannot tell you what is in this letter. Believe me, it is no pleasant thing that I hide from you; it would not make you happy to read these lines. Also, they are unimportant, for I do not heed them.'

She prayed him to tell her. How could she rest if she knew he had a thought apart from her? It gave her anxiety, she said, that it was something disagreeable. She used all her arts of attraction, of seduction, but he remained obdurate. Then she flamed into anger and left him with a bitter word.

To celebrate his Highness's entry into Ludwigsburg, a masked ball had been commanded to take place on the evening following the arrival of the court. The Duke and his mistress met at supper after the episode of the letter, but the Landhofmeisterin avoided his Highness's eye and seemed absorbed in conversation with Zollern. During the evening she played faro at her own table, and early took her leave, pleading that she was fatigued. On the morning of the masked ball his Highness attended a stag-hunt, and thus it fell out that he and Wilhelmine did not meet to discuss the vexed question of the letter.

The beautiful ballroom at Ludwigsburg was brilliantly illuminated by a thousand waxen tapers which burned in the huge crystal chandeliers. The Landhofmeisterin's own musicians discoursed rhythmical strains from the gallery, and a gay motley crowd moved on the inlaid polished floor. There were dominoes of every colour, bizarre, fantastic shapes; and somehow this masked assemblage had a strangely sinister appearance, a mysterious lurking menace seemed to emanate from it.

The Landhofmeisterin was easily recognisable from her great height. For a moment she had contemplated dressing in man's clothes, but Serenissimus had dissuaded her. The Duke's domino was of 'GrÄvenitz yellow' of the same hue as that of the Landhofmeisterin. Madame de Ruth had refused to go masked.

'My old face is mask enough,' she said; and Zollern, delighted to escape the ordeal of a travesty, had declared he would keep his old friend company. So the two sat together and made merry over the grotesque appearance of the other guests.

At first, many had approached the undominoed couple and, under cover of carnival licence, some had ventured to say sharp things to the old courtesan, but each in turn retired discomfited before the sting of Madame de Ruth's quick wit. The Landhofmeisterin stood near to her friend. She felt strangely lonely in this disguised crowd, and Serenissimus held aloof from her. She saw him exchanging compliments with a light blue domino, from whose supple movements Wilhelmine guessed to be a young and graceful woman.

A sudden wave of jealous fear invaded the Landhofmeisterin's heart. And leaving her safe place behind Madame de Ruth and Zollern, she walked out into the crowd of revellers. Instantly several masks left the dancing, laughing, whirling main stream and approached the newcomer. 'Fair mask, come tread a measure!' 'Do you seek love or amusement here?' and many other meaningless absurdities were squeaked into her ear by some unwary ones who had not recognised the much-feared Landhofmeisterin in the tall yellow-clad figure. She shot a glance of contempt at her interlocutors and pushed past them. Of a sudden she was surrounded by a circle of red-garbed gnomes who danced round her. 'Let me pass, good people,' she said; and when they would not, she broke through the chain of their arms and hurried on. They would have followed, but a black mask caught the ringleader and whispered in his ear, and the laughing gnomes fell back murmuring together.

The Duke was still dallying with the blue domino; Wilhelmine saw him lead her to one of the windows which opened out on to the terraces. She followed swiftly, hardly hearing the comments and whispers of the revellers who took this occasion to convey insulting words to the hated woman. As she reached the window in whose balcony she knew her lover to be, she felt a hand on her arm. She turned angrily.

'What do you want? how dare you hinder me?' she said. It was a tall, thin domino who accosted her, entirely black, and with a skull and crossbones embroidered in white upon the breast. A startling figure, and to Wilhelmine's overwrought nerves it seemed to be the figure of Death come to snatch her life's glory and happiness from her in this her triumph of the completion of the palace.

'What do you want of me?' she said again, conquering her superstitious fear.

'I would speak to you, Madame; I have a warning to give you.' The voice was deep and low, and after the squeaky tones which the revellers affected in order to disguise their natural voices, this man's bass notes sounded hollow and funereal.

'Speak then here,' she answered.

'No; my warning must be given to you where none can hear,' he responded; and once more laying his black-gloved hand on her arm, he drew her away from the window towards a door which led down a short flight of steps into the moonlit garden. Did the man mean murder? It flashed across Wilhelmine that she was going blindly into danger. She paused on the topmost step of the flight.

'I will go no further; speak now, or I leave you here.' Her voice was calm, though her hands were trembling a little.

'I am sent to tell you that your hour has come; that your ill-gotten power, your evil triumphs, are waning.' His voice was deep, sonorous, impressive.

'Who sends you?' she asked. Coming from the brilliantly lit rooms and the stir and noise of the ball, this sudden interlude in the still, moonlit garden, with the strange, sinister, black-robed figure, seemed to her like a dream.

'I am sent by one you have ruined, in the name of the many you have injured! and yet, in mercy, I bid you fly while there is time!' the stranger answered.

'Ah! Mercy? This is some absurd fiction; no one has mercy upon me,' she said bitterly.

'Yes, I have. I came to deliver my message, and yesterday I saw your entry into Ludwigsburg. I saw the peasants cruelly driven back by the soldiers' swords. I saw the great monument you have raised here to your shame, this mad, mock court of yours, and I hated you! but then I saw your youth, your beauty, and I vowed I would warn you, that you might carry this, your true wealth, to some atonement for your sins. I bid you fly; the Duke has information against you which must spell ruin for you—ruin and death.'

'You are mad,' she said quietly.

'No; I am not mad, unless compassion is madness.'

She drew off her mask, and, in the clear white moonlight, turned her face upon him—that strange, haunting face of hers, which Eberhard Ludwig said no man could forget.

'And so you had compassion because you saw me?' she laughed. 'Your mission is absurd, but I forgive you because some generous thought was yours even for the GrÄvenitzin.' She was all woman at that moment; the hard, cruel oppressor, the ruling Landhofmeisterin, was banished from her being, she was fascination incarnate.

'How beautiful you are—how beautiful——!' the black mask whispered.

'Tell me who you are,' she said, and smiled at him.

'An enemy who would turn friend, and more—if he looked too long at you,' he answered slowly.

'Tell me your name,' she asked once more.

'No; my name you will never know, only I have warned you.'

'I thank you,' she said gravely, and gave him her hand. He bent and kissed it, and vanished into the shadow of the garden. She stood a moment looking after her unknown visitor. Ruin and death, he had said. She pondered on why this stranger should have warned her. Evidently an enemy with an evil plan against her, turned aside by some man's whim, some sudden mood caused by the sight of her beauty. Flight, he counselled, flight for her! No! she would battle to the last, but she would not neglect the unknown's warning. In a flash it came to her that this man was connected with the letter which the Duke had refused to communicate to her. She replaced her mask and returned to the ballroom. Still the same monotonous whirling crowd, the pattering feet of the dancers, the din of the music.

She searched for Serenissimus. He was standing with a group of masks at the lower end of the hall, and did not observe her. She made her way slowly through the crowd to the other side of the room, and slipped through the door into the ante-hall. Immediately two lackeys sprang forward to inquire her Excellency's pleasure. She waved them away and passed onward, out to the terrace, and towards her pavilion. The sentry at her door saluted her, but she gained her own ante-hall without meeting any of her waiting men, even Maria was gaping in the crowd in the courtyard probably.

Wilhelmine paused a moment in her antechamber on the first floor. She listened attentively, and called Maria under her breath, but no answer came. Then she drew out the little key, approached the door leading to the statue gallery and opened it gently. The gallery was in darkness, save where a faint white radiance was reflected from the moonlit garden without, but that side of the palace lay in deep shadow. She crept on and groped for the lock beneath the plaster Amorino's hand. At first she could not find it, but after some moments she felt the tiny keyhole, and, fitting the key, she turned it and the door swung open. She glided in behind the arras, and found the spring which opened the partition. She listened; there was no sound from the room within. She pressed the spring, the tapestry door opened silently beneath her touch, and she passed into the Duke's writing-closet. Here the moon shone full in, white and ghostly. Wilhelmine's mind flew back to that far-off night at GÜstrow, when in the moonlight she had stolen the key from under her mother's pillow. How she had trembled! She had been a child in experience then, a very different being from the strong, self-confident woman she knew herself to be nowadays. And yet she trembled in the moonlit room as she had trembled then. What was that? The moonlight falling in sheeny silver through the window, seemed to her to take the shape of a tall, white woman's figure. She remembered the grim old legend of that Countess of OrlamÜnde, murderess of little children, who haunted all the palaces of her descendants. In the castle at Stuttgart, they said, the White Lady walked, her pale trailing garments streaked with blood. Could she wander here too in new, gorgeous Ludwigsburg? Almost Wilhelmine turned and fled, but the remembrance of her dire peril came to her. She looked bravely at the moonlight—there was no ghost there; it was only the Lady Moon, witch of the night, throwing her cold, false smiles through the casement. Wilhelmine went forward boldly. She must find the letter at any cost; its contents threatened her, and she must know.

The Duke's bureau was locked. She pressed the secret spring in vain. Was she doomed to be baffled, after all? She remembered that her own bureau was identical with his Highness's. Resolutely, with that patience which is born of hazardous undertakings, she glided away through the arras door, through the black gallery, and regained her apartments. She heard a movement in her sleeping-room, and Maria came to her.

'Your Excellency, pray forgive that I was not here.'

Even Maria must not know why she had left the ballroom, she thought.

'Go to Madame de Ruth's apartments. A black silk domino lies in the wardrobe; go, bring it to me. I would change my colour and play a merry jest upon some friends.' The maid departed. Now all was clear for some time, for Madame de Ruth's apartment lay at the far end of the east wing. Swiftly she sought the key of her bureau; it was hidden in a secret drawer beneath the writing-desk. She took it, and passed through the little door again. Once more she listened behind the arras; it seemed to her as if something moved. She paused, then gently reopened the tapestry door and peered in. The room lay silent, deserted, white and ghostly as before. She passed in, and fitted her key into the bureau. The lock yielded and the bureau flew open. Letters, documents, drawings, plans for hunting excursions—all the usual occupants of Eberhard Ludwig's bureau. She could see enough in the moonlight. Ah! here a creased paper. She caught it up and examined it. Yes; this must be the thing she feared—four large pages filled with cramped characters. She looked more closely. Forstner's writing! She almost laughed. This, then, was what his Highness had hidden so scrupulously from her! Thanks to the unknown's warning, she had come on the track of her most deadly enemy. Had the black mask not spoken, she might have forgotten the letter. She closed the bureau carefully and stepped behind the arras, shutting the tapestry door carefully. She was now in perfect darkness. She groped along the wall to find the lock of the gallery door. Great God! what was that? A movement near her, an icy touch on her hand. The White Lady's death-grip! and yet better that, she thought, than any human being's presence; better that than for any mortal to have seen her rifling the Duke's bureau. She sought wildly for the lock. At last she found it and slipped in the key. As the door sprang open something pushed past her—a huge, black shape.

'MÉlac!' she called in a strained voice, and the powerful beast came to her and rubbed his cold nose upon her hand. Only the wolf-hound, then, who had been sleeping in the darkness behind the arras. She laughed when she remembered her ghastly fear of the White Lady's death-grip!

She regained her own room. Maria had not returned from Madame de Ruth's apartment. She kindled a light from her steel tinder-casket and set a waxen taper aglow. Then she began to read Forstner's letter.

'Monseigneur, my Prince, and once my friend! Though it has been your pleasure to discredit me, I cannot rest until I have let you know the truth. You are being grossly abused, your noble trust and love made mock of by a creature too vile for human words to describe. A woman, who to her other lovers holds you up to scorn and ridicule! yes, ridicule of your passion, making mock, betraying the secrets of your bed. Besides, it is she who has the gulden which you accused me of purloining; she to whom half your revenues are carried, and you are doled out a paltry sum which, after all, you spend again upon this creature. You are weary of her, too; all your Dukedom knows that right well—weary of her, and you dare not dismiss her! The people laugh: your subjects, your friends, strangers, other princes, all Europe laughs. See her! observe her hideous faults, her foul blemishes of mind and body, her filthy actions!' Then followed the names of his rival lovers, and a list of the vast sums she had filched from the ducal treasury. All this set forth so cleverly, with such apparent proof, that she trembled as she read. There were official business transactions accurately quoted and put in such a light as to seem to be robberies. It was a dangerous letter for her—half truth, half falsehood, difficult to unravel, impossible to deny entirely. 'Honour binds you, you say,' the epistle continued. 'Ah! my Prince! you have a toy which has turned to a viper in your hand! Throw it from you! Other princes have done so, and the world has applauded. Take a fair and noble mistress, one younger, less rapacious. Consider this woman: already she grows gross; in a few years' time she will be a mountain of flesh; her eyes are dimming, her lips are paler, her teeth less white than they were when she came from her obscure home.'

Wilhelmine, in all the magnificence of her beauty, of her maturity, read thus far quietly; then, raging, she sprang to her feet.

'I could have forgiven you some of your insults, Forstner, but this is too much! By God! by God! you shall suffer! I swear it by my salvation!'

She read on: details too disgusting, too gross to write down here, foul accusation upon accusation, hideous blasphemies against her bodily beauty.

Of a truth, not even a saint could have forgiven the writer of that letter—and Wilhelmine von GrÄvenitz was no saint.