to be
undisturbed till he regained entire consciousness. The lackeys searched
for the cloth, and not finding it, inquired if the physician had removed
it. Baron Roeder, who was waiting in his Highness's writing-closet, heard
the question through the open door. He tiptoed to the threshold and
informed the physician that her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin had
carried away the cloth. His Highness heard, and, starting up, commanded
Roeder to bring it back forthwith.

'But, your Highness, her Excellency has carried it to La Favorite,' said
the astonished courtier.

'You are to fetch it and bring it here! I tell you to go. If her
Excellency will not give it, take it by force--by force, do you hear?
Here is my signet-ring, show her that. Take a company of guards with
you--but bring me back that cloth!'

The Duke was beside himself; he was weak from loss of blood, and he had
worked himself into a frenzy of fear. Suddenly the woman he had loved for
twenty years had become, to his thinking, a dangerous, threatening witch;
she who had lain on his breast, his mistress, the woman who had tended
him in illness, the hallowed being he had well-nigh worshipped--offering
up his country, his wife, his son, all things at her shrine--now appeared
before him as the incarnation of evil to be compelled by a company of
guards.

In vain the physician essayed to calm his Highness; he was as one
distraught, raving frantically of the missing cloth, of spells and
incantations.

* * * * *

Roeder, arriving at La Favorite, stationed his guards carefully. As a
fact, the gentleman was terribly alarmed. It was no pleasantry to affront
the wrath of the Graevenitz. Was she not a tyrant? and tyrants had strange
ways of hanging on to power after actual favour was gone past. And was
she not a witch? it was not reassuring to incur a witch's curse. Nay, but
she was a fallen favourite, the vile amputated canker of a terrible
epoch, harmless now the blister of her evil glory was pricked, and
yet----

Politely he requested the Landhofmeisterin to deliver up the missing
cloth, but she denied possessing it; he insisted, threatened to call the
guard, and the whole house should be searched; he had his Highness's
warrant. He showed her the Duke's signet-ring. She raged at him, dared
him to oppose her, menaced him. Then, changing her tone, she cajoled him:
if she indeed had the cloth, it would be easy for him to retract his
sta