bserving to his dismay that Forstner had
halted.

'Did your Highness call me?' asked the too-devoted friend, and made as
though to return.

'No; I coughed. Do go away!' shouted the Duke in return, and set himself
to cough vigorously, for behind him from the darkened street there came
the unmistakable sound of Wilhelmine's irrepressible laughter.

At length the angular figure vanished, and the Duke sprang round with
arms outstretched, and into them he received the stately form of his
mistress, who lay upon his breast; for once unresponsive to his
passionate kisses, while she laughed in a very agony of mirth.

'Forgive me, Monseigneur,' she said at last, her voice still shaking with
laughter; 'but you know the scene was really beyond me. I heard all, and
oh! Forstner was so droll, and you too.' She began to laugh again. 'Oh,
how delightfully undignified, mon Prince--when you coughed to hide my
laughter.'

Once more she leaned against Eberhard Ludwig's shoulder and rocked with
merriment. The Duke also laughed, but a trifle ruefully; that meddler
Forstner had destroyed the rapture of his meeting with Wilhelmine, had
broken the charm of his pensive mood; and besides, the Duke knew from
experience that when Wilhelmine began to laugh like that he would
probably hear no serious word from her during the evening. Even in their
passion's transports he had known his mistress suddenly go off into a
series of 'fous rires,' and no man enjoys the most harmless laughter at
such moments.

'Wilhelmine, for God's sake stop laughing, and tell me where you have
been since the Duchess--since the Duchess----' he hesitated, not knowing
how to express the summary ejection from the castle.

'Since her Highness had the goodness to turn me out.' Wilhelmine was
serious now, though her lips still twitched with mirth, and her eyes were
mischievous and teasing. 'Nay, your Highness, that is my secret. I have
always a hiding-place whither I can vanish when you are not good to me.
Shall I disappear again? I have but to say a mystic word and your
Highness will clasp empty air.' She was play-acting, as she often did,
and she looked up at him with such dazzling eyes that he caught her to
him with masterful passion.

'Witch! enchantress!' he murmured. 'What matters it where you were; you
are here now with me, and never to part again!'

'Till death us do part,' she answered. 'Nay, those are the words men say
to their wives, not to their----' A note