and still in the dust.

The coach drew up at the Jaegerhaus, where the doors stood wide open,
disclosing a company of servants drawn up in solemn line. Two sentries
were posted at either side of the entrance. A black-clad major-domo bowed
on the threshold, while half a dozen lackeys sprang forward to receive
the tall woman who was slowly descending from the coach. Madame la
Comtesse de Wuerben, her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg,
Countess Graevenitz, had arrived at Stuttgart to attend to the duties
connected with her invalid husband's court charge.

This exalted lady was the first personage of the court after the reigning
Duchess, and his Highness had offered her apartments in the castle, but
these were refused, her Excellency preferring to occupy an independent
residence.

Thus it fell out that Wilhelmine returned to the Jaegerhaus towards the
end of September, some four months after she had fled from Urach, and a
few days since the mock marriage with Wuerben, 'ce cher Nepomuk, mon
mari,' as she ironically named him to Madame de Ruth.

There had been grievous storms at Stuttgart during the days succeeding
his Highness's return from hunting in the Schoenbuch, that shooting
expedition which had been but a pretext to leave Stuttgart and hurry to
Schaffhausen, in order to hinder the celebration of the ceremony of
Wilhelmine's marriage.

Serenissimus returned in a mood which would brook no contradiction. He
announced to the Geheimraethe, and to the court, that it was his pleasure
to revive the ancient office of Landhofmeister, and that he had conferred
this, the highest charge of his court, upon a Bohemian nobleman of the
name of Wuerben, but that this gentleman being seriously indisposed, his
lady-wife had undertaken to fulfil the various duties of
Landhofmeisterin, and would reside at the Jaegerhaus. Private information
came to the astonished Geheimraethe that this new evil was but the old
poison with a new label; that this Countess Wuerben was the hated
Graevenitzin. Bitterly they regretted their refusal of the two hundred
thousand gulden, but it was too late now.

To Johanna Elizabetha this announcement was made by his Highness in
person and with cruel frankness. She was told that she had refused a life
of ease and peace, leaving his Highness to enjoy a happiness which she
herself could never have provided, and that he took this way to save
himself from despair, for without Wilhelmine he would not,