ous pang had she heard.

With a feeling of unreality, as though she were just awakened from an
evil dream, Wilhelmine found herself once more in her pretty yellow-hung
saloon. Maria, the maid, kneeled beside her, bathing the wounds in her
palms made by the rough surface of the grotto walls. Slime from the
moss-grown stones was on Wilhelmine's dress, and deep red marks of rust
from the waterworks' lever had stained the breast of her gown where she
had pressed on the bar.

Zollern stood before her. He was urging her immediate departure from
Stuttgart; the place was unsafe for her in the Duke's absence, he
averred. The Graevenitz responded wearily. She was willing to
depart--indeed it was impossible for her to remain--but whither? Guestrow?
Zollern reflected. He owned a small castle at Schaffhausen in
Switzerland, and he begged her to accept it as a refuge. 'And I pray
you,' he added, 'keep it always if it pleases you; we never know when a
humble refuge may not be welcome.' And so it was decided that Wilhelmine
was to depart immediately, accompanied to the frontier by a hundred
guards commanded by a certain Captain Schrader, whom Zollern knew he
could trust, because this officer was anxious to make his way at court by
pleasing the Duke.

The dawn was breaking through the deep blue of the night sky when
Wilhelmine started on her journey to Schaffhausen. The cavalcade rattled
down the Graben, Wilhelmine's heavy coach in the midst of the famous
Silver Guard. They passed out of the town-gate and gained the open
country, where the fields sent forth a fragrant breath, and the woods
were pungent, sweet, and fresh from the cool night. It reminded
Wilhelmine of that May morning a twelvemonth since, when she had entered
Wirtemberg, and yet, though Nature smiled then as on that day, how
different it had seemed to her. Then everything had been radiant with
Spring happiness, and her heart had responded gladly, though she was but
a solitary stranger venturing into an unknown country. Now she felt half
angry with the woods and fields for their peaceful joyousness, and her
soul gave forth no answering note of gladness, though she rode at ease in
a fine coach surrounded by a brilliant escort as though she were a queen.
Her thoughts were bitter, poisoned with disgust, for she realised that,
in spite of her great prosperity, she was in truth a fugitive before 'la
canaille,' and, as she journeyed, she took no pleasure in the gracious
lovel