most inconvenient, most difficult
for me.' He spoke loudly.

'Hush! be careful! Wuerben must not hear,' implored Madame de Ruth, while
Wilhelmine sprang up. She breathed in laboured gasps, her eyes fixed
wildly on her brother.

'His Highness? You are mad, Friedrich! or is this some absurd plot
against me?' She turned on her brother fiercely. 'Is this some
foolishness you have arranged?'

'It has nothing to do with me. I am never consulted,' he began; but his
further utterance was cut short, for Eberhard Ludwig entered unannounced.

'Leave us together,' he said shortly. 'For God's sake, Madame de Ruth,
manage that I may speak with her undisturbed.' Madame de Ruth hurried
Friedrich Graevenitz away with scant ceremony.

'My beloved! oh, to see you again!' Serenissimus clasped her to him.
'Tell me you are mine, as you were at Urach! Am I in time to hinder this
terrible sacrilege?'

She told him that the marriage had not yet taken place, that it was for
the morrow.

'It cannot be; you are my wife by the laws of God and man! I cannot
suffer you to be called the wife of another. Tell me that you will not do
this thing. Wilhelmine, my beloved, you cannot--you cannot----' He held
her hand in his, speaking rapidly, indistinctly.

'There is no other way,' she said sadly.

'But it is not possible! You cannot, it is a shameful thing. I forbid you
to do it. I will never leave you again. My son may reign at Stuttgart.
See, beloved, we will live here together--live out our days in peace and
love. It shall be a poem, an idyll--far from all interruptions, far from
intrigues!'

He looked into her face with shining eyes, but he found there no
answering spark of enthusiasm. Dropping her hand he turned away. She was
aghast. True, she loved Eberhard Ludwig, but she realised at that moment
how much more potent was her love of splendour and power. What! to drag
out her life at Schaffhausen--even with him at her side? No, it was
impossible.

'Eberhard, be reasonable. This marriage is no marriage, it is simply the
purchase of a name. You know well enough the conditions which are
accepted by Wuerben. Twenty thousand gulden on the day of our contract,
twelve thousand gulden a year for his life. Various fine titles and court
charges, provided he undertakes never to appear in Stuttgart, never to
claim his marriage rights! He is to sign this document in the presence of
the lawyers to-morrow before our----' she hesitated, 'before our
mar