Is Stuttgart your destination?' he asked.
'Perhaps,' she answered, and turned away; the man's curiosity was,
evidently, little to her taste. However, another thought seemed to come
to her, for she turned again towards him, and, with a smile of infinite
sweetness, began to question him on the country, the people, and the
court. At first he answered shortly enough, but the lady fixed her eyes
upon him. Gradually he felt (he told the tale often in later days) a sort
of dream-feeling creep over him, and he replied to all her questions
fully, telling her everything he knew of the country gossip: how the Duke
was heartily weary of his wife, Duchess Johanna Elizabetha; how she was
eternally jealous of him; of how a Frau von Geyling held the Duke
enthralled; that the Erbprinz was a sickly child of nine years old, who
men said could not be long for this world. He told her of the people's
hatred of a Herr von Stafforth, a foreigner, who had become very mighty
in Stuttgart; in fact he gossiped freely, and perhaps, in his half-hour's
talk, let her discover more of the people's thoughts, and the dangerously
discontented state of the country, than was known to the ministers of
Wirtemberg. At length the lady rose and requested him to see if the storm
had sufficiently abated for the coach to continue its journey. The man
went out rubbing his eyes; he felt as if he had been half asleep.

The storm was over, and only the rain fell quietly as the coach rumbled
out of Cannstatt and across the bridge over the Neckar. The lady leaned
back against the wooden side of the diligence and closed her eyes. She
reflected that she must be near Stuttgart, and she wondered what her
destiny would be in the town which she was nearing in the darkness.
Gradually the monotonous creaking and the jolting of the heavy vehicle
made her drowsy, also she felt the warmth of the potent Wirtemberg wine
glow through her tired limbs. The coach passed through the outskirts of
Stuttgart, but Wilhelmine von Graevenitz, for it was she, slept and did
not see the outlying houses of that town, where Fate willed she should
play so important a part.

Wilhelmine had tarried in Berlin with her sister, Frau Sittmann, and the
days of her visit had lengthened to weeks ere she had resumed her journey
southwards, for she had been sick unto death with smallpox. When she
recovered she had almost found it in her heart to return to Guestrow and
hide her ravaged beauty; but in reality the