She read on: details too disgusting, too gross to write down here, foul accusation upon accusation, hideous blasphemies against her bodily beauty.

Of a truth, not even a saint could have forgiven the writer of that letter--and Wilhelmine von Gravenitz was no saint.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BURNING IN EFFIGY

ON the morning following the masquerade, his Highness's Chief Officer of the Secret Service of Wirtemberg craved audience. The Secret Service had been inst.i.tuted by Eberhard Ludwig after the murderous attack upon the Gravenitz in Duke Christopher's grotto. In the unquiet state of the country, rife with discontent and its attendant conspiracies, such a service was absolutely necessary; but, of course, this system of espionage was most unpopular, and as the Landhofmeisterin was credited with the inst.i.tution of the Secret Service, the people's fear and hatred of her increased.

The Chief Officer had grave matters to communicate to his Highness: a plot to murder her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin had been discovered, and from intercepted papers it would appear that the conspirators also aimed at the Duke himself. It seemed that many influential persons were implicated.

The design was to induce his Highness to abdicate in favour of the Erbprinz, during whose minority Forstner was to be Premier, and the d.u.c.h.ess Johanna Elizabetha Regent of Wirtemberg. This portion of the conspiracy could be dealt with easily, but the murderous intent upon the Landhofmeisterin took a more serious aspect, as the Secret Service agents had procured information which led the Chief Officer to infer that the would-be a.s.sa.s.sins were actually in, or near, Ludwigsburg. It was, however, impossible to arrest every stranger on mere suspicion, for both Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart were full of country gentlemen who had been commanded to appear at the Mask Ball.

At mention of Forstner, his Highness went to his bureau to seek his erstwhile friend's letter. In vain he searched in drawer and secret panel. The letter had vanished. The four cadets, who stood sentry at the door of the Duke's apartment, were questioned; they had seen none enter.

His Highness's private waiting-men were examined, and the soldiers of the guard who stood in the lower antehall. All answered that no one had pa.s.sed through. The Chief Officer of the Secret Service himself had watched the entrance of the Corps de Logis during the preceding evening.

The Duke searched his bureau once more. He was greatly disturbed. Open warfare, a hand-to-hand combat, he said, were child's play to the horror of this lurking enemy, who evidently had access even to the private bureau. Zollern was requested to come and speak with the Duke; his advice was asked.

'Have you mentioned the matter to the Landhofmeisterin? She is very wise, and may be able to suggest some explanation,' said Zollern.

No; his Highness had not seen her Excellency. Then a sudden suspicion came to Eberhard Ludwig. She wished to see the letter; could she have purloined it?

'Do you know if the Landhofmeisterin left the ballroom during the last evening?' he asked Zollern.

No; the old Prince had observed her Excellency constantly, and she had not been absent from the dancing-hall, save for a few moments which she pa.s.sed on one of the balconies in the company of a black domino, whose ident.i.ty Monseigneur de Zollern had been unable to ascertain.

Serenissimus dismissed his suspicions with relief. It is pain to doubt those we love.

Zollern took his leave, and the Duke desired the Secret Service officer to retire. He would ask her Excellency's advice in private. The Landhofmeisterin was summoned to attend his Highness on important business. After some little delay she arrived. Pa.s.sing up the grand stairs, she was ceremoniously ushered into his Highness's presence.

His suspicion, though dismissed, rankled. Serenissimus greeted her coldly, and informed her of the letter's disappearance.

'Your Highness refers to a letter which I was not permitted to peruse? I regret that it should be lost, but you will remember that you considered it to be unimportant.'

The relationship between the lovers was strained.

'I do not discuss the importance of the doc.u.ment, Madame. Indeed, the smallest sc.r.a.p of paper missing from my bureau would be a grave matter to me, as I should thus ascertain that some person had access to my private papers.'

The Duke spoke with cold displeasure. He had felt a pang of jealous suspicion when Zollern informed him of Wilhelmine's interview with the black domino; also, he was still angry with his mistress for her stormy exit after his refusal to show her Forstner's letter; and further, he was greatly incensed at the plot to force him to abdicate. All these causes wrought an iron firmness into his usually gentle voice. Wilhelmine felt this to be a crucial moment in her life.

'It would appear that your Highness sees fit to question me in a strange manner upon this trivial matter! I am not aware that the Landhofmeisterin's office is concerned with the superintendence of your Highness's private bureau,' she said haughtily.

'You know my meaning perfectly, Wilhelmine,' the Duke broke out furiously. 'Alas! like a pack of cards built in a card-house, my happiness, my pride, my triumph, my joy in my new palace, come falling about my head! How sad, how futile a thing is earthly joy!' He turned away, and bent to stroke Melac's head. The good beast had approached in seeming anxiety upon hearing the Duke's distressed voice.

Wilhelmine looked at his Highness for a moment in silence, and her face softened. After all, she loved Eberhard Ludwig, and in spite of her overweening prosperity, coupled with the world-hardness which marred her, there lingered something of tenderness in her love. Then, too, she was a consummate actress, and a being gifted with the womanly genius for charming, and therein lies sympathy. It is when this sympathetic spark is killed by the terrible blight of over-prosperity, that the deterioration of a woman takes place. Not all in a day, but gradually, the poison works: the first stage signalised by a cruel hardness to those they love; then an entire incapacity for tenderness; ultimately the hideous blight falls on the woman's charm, her voice, her face, her laugh, the essence of her being. G.o.d knows the tragedy of it; G.o.d alone can gauge the agony inflicted by the world-hardened women upon the hearts of those who love them; and G.o.d Himself punishes eventually, for: 'The mills of G.o.d grind slow, but they grind exceeding sure.'

Still in Wilhelmine there lingered a little tenderness for Eberhard Ludwig, and this taught her a surer way to her own safety than ever her brain could have shown her. She came to him and, laying her hand on his shoulder, she said: 'The world and my heart lie at your feet, Eberhard, beloved. You are fighting with some wild phantasy, some spectre which exists only in your own mind. See, we share all things, let me share your sorrow. Is it only the loss of this letter which distresses you? Oh! tell me; surely you will not shut me out from your life?'

Her voice charmed him as on that first day when he had called her Philomele, and he turned to her with his love shining in his eyes.

'Am I, indeed, scaring myself with a phantom?' he said, and a note of almost childlike appeal lay in his tone.

'Yes, only that,' she made answer, and, smiling, drew him to her. Then he told her the story of the plot against them, but he did not mention Forstner as the prime conspirator. She laughed.

'_You_ are safe, for none can make you abdicate against your will; and I am safe because you protect me, beloved.'

'Safe? Yes; but ah! the letter! Who slinks past our guards and robs my bureau? It is hateful. I love to fight a man, but this lurking danger which I guess hidden behind each arras----'

'The letter? Are you sure you sought in each hiding-place of your bureau?' she said. Already in her mind a plan was forming whereby she could allay his fears and conquer his suspicions. Forstner's letter lay hidden in her bosom; she would replace it in the bureau-drawer while they searched, then, with the Duke's knowledge of Forstner's plot, she would break this dangerous enemy.

'Forgive me, Eberhard, but so many people search frantically and thus overlook the very object they seek! See, let us look through the papers together.'

She approached the bureau, and made believe to be mighty awkward with the fastening. His Highness unlocked the panel, and together they began a review of the tumbled doc.u.ments within, Wilhelmine talking gaily the while.

'What is it like, this precious letter?--large? small?' she asked.

'A large paper in Forstner's writing,' returned the Duke, forgetting that she did not know whence came the letter.

'In Forstner's writing!' she exclaimed. 'And this you hide from me? The man is my deadly enemy, and, as you know now at last, but a false friend to you! You say the world is dark and evil to you; what is it to me when you, the love of my life, can harbour letters from my cruel enemy?'

She flung herself down on the chair beside the bureau, and burying her face in the papers on the writing-desk, burst into a flood of tears.

Eberhard Ludwig fell on his knees at her feet, and in broken words implored her pardon. He kissed the hem of her garment, accused himself of treason to her, prayed her to be consoled.

'Give me water, I am faint!' she moaned. He sprang up and hastened to his sleeping-room to bring water for her. Now was her moment: with incredible swiftness she drew the letter from its hiding-place and slipped it under a bundle of papers and plans on the bureau. When his Highness returned carrying a goblet of water, he found his mistress still weeping bitterly with her face hidden on the writing-desk.

She drank the water while Eberhard Ludwig hung over her in anxious rapture, heaping reproaches upon himself for his cruelty, but she refused to be consoled.

'What can I do to prove to you that all my unworthy suspicions have vanished?' he cried in desperation.

'Tell me what was written in that letter; let me defend myself,' she answered quickly.

'You ask the one thing I may not do. I cannot,' he said sadly.

'And the letter is lost!' she cried; 'who knows what enemy of mine has got it? Alas! perhaps all the world will know the vile things this man has written, and you have let him go unpunished. All will know save the accused criminal! Oh! the injustice! the cruelty!'

The Duke shuddered.

'Yes, it is true; that terrible thing I had not remembered. O G.o.d! if I could but find that accursed letter! At least, no one but myself need have known of the foul accusations; but now that the letter is lost----'

Wildly he began to search once more in the bureau, and Wilhelmine almost laughed when she saw him lift the packet of papers under which she had slipped Forstner's letter. With a cry the Duke turned to her.

'Thank G.o.d! I have found it! It lay here beneath this bundle. Wilhelmine, beloved, now none can read these blasphemies against you,' he cried.

'So you tell me to my face that yonder paper is a blasphemy against me, a foul accusation, and you will not let me clear myself!' she cried wildly.

'I swore to Forstner that I would never, in spoken or written word, divulge his communications--never give or voluntarily let another take his letters. Unless you can divine what you wish to know, there is no help.' He laughed harshly.