esire
was aroused, increased a hundred-fold by the anguish of absence. Could it
be true that such passion's enchantments were never to be his again? he
asked himself. His memory conjured up a thousand charms of his beloved,
her voice, her laugh, her touch. 'Wilhelmine, Wilhelmine!'

He sprang up. 'God! it is awful! Wilhelmine, my love, my mistress!' he
said aloud. Ridiculous poet-fellow! he listened as though he expected an
answer.

In the distance there was a rumble of thunder, and the restless breeze
rioted suddenly in the tree-branches for a moment, passed onward, then
swept back again rustling, then came a roll of thunder closer than the
last. Another pause--fateful it seemed, as though the garden trembled
before the coming storm. A white flash played intermittently upon the
fountain, followed by a thunderclap directly overhead, and a torrent of
rain poured down. The Duke stood still a moment, the rain beating upon
him. The storm delighted him, it answered to his tempestuous mood. He
turned away from the castle and walked in the direction of the garden
boundary on the south side, passing the drawbridge over the disused and
flower-filled moat of the castle wall. What would have been his emotions
had he known that his fancy led him to wander whither Wilhelmine had
passed but three days before? He came to the garden's limit and stood
looking towards the dimly discernible openings of several narrow streets,
the oldest and most ill-famed gangways of the town. Of a sudden he
descried a small form muffled in a sombre cloak. The street was utterly
deserted save for Eberhard Ludwig himself and this forlorn little figure,
and the Duke's attention was thus arrested. The pouring rain had not
extinguished the light of the two dilapidated hanging lamps, which were
fixed upon the walls of the street from whence had issued the diminutive
night-wanderer, whom the Duke saw was now making for the castle.

The true Wirtemberger vanishes like smoke before the first drop of rain,
and the Duke therefore concluded that any errand undertaken, and
continued, in a downpour must be for a purpose of paramount importance.
So he watched with curiosity the approaching figure, observing with
surprise that it was a child of some ten years old.

'Ha, young person,' called the Duke, as the child reached him; 'whither
away so fast, and what may he want in the castle gardens at this time of
night?'

Thus apostrophised, the figure hesitated; then ap