nels. The mingled odours of hounds and straw displeased
Wilhelmine's acute sense of smell, and one of her first commands upon
entering her new abode was that hounds and straw should be removed
instantly. She declared that therefrom the whole house was infested with
fleas, and when the Duke, wishful to propitiate the angry lady, proposed
to send for the late occupant of the Jaegerhaus to inquire if he had been
aware of his neighbours, the fleas, she remarked angrily that fleas were
dainty feeders and, like Jews, were not in the habit of selecting pigskin
for food. This remark was evidently heard by some unfriendly person, for
on the morrow it was the common talk of the town. A few days later the
hounds were seen progressing through Stuttgart on their way to temporary
kennels hastily arranged in the Rothwald. The populace followed this
cortege shouting, 'They are taking away our beautiful hounds, and leaving
an accursed bitch in the old kennels!' And that day when Serenissimus
drove out, accompanied as usual by Wilhelmine, he was met by an angry
murmuring crowd. Here was the beginning of that unpopularity of
Wilhelmine's which gave the lie to the devotion of her friends, and
notably her personal attendants and servants. This unpopularity which had
so terrible an effect on her character, hardening her heart, accentuating
the underlying cruelty, the indifference to aught save her own pleasure
and power. Feeling herself accounted evil, she became so. It was this,
taken together with her magnificent success and her extraordinary
prosperity, which caused her to become a cruel and self-seeking woman.
Monsieur Gabriel, in the far-off days at Guestrow, had feared this
development, had trembled before the world-hardness which would mar the
being he loved. How many have trembled at the same thought, and in
sadness and loneliness have realised that their dread has become a cruel
reality! We can face Death for those we love, mourning them in agony and
tears, but we can find no beauty in that bitter and hideous grief which
comes to us when those we loved, we trusted, we admired, change to
us--worst of all, change in themselves. This is the inexorable Death in
Life, and in this Death we cannot dream of a fair consoling Hereafter.
The thing we loved has not only perished--alas! we realise that it has
never existed! What we worshipped was the shadow of our own making, a
mirage conjured up by our heart's desire. To those who love most, love