'Wilhelmine, Countess Graevenitz, masquerading under the title of Countess of Urach, is hereby declared an exile from all countries under our suzerainty, nor can she hold property in these aforementioned countries, nor call for the law's protection. From the date of this writing she is given six days wherein to leave Wirtemberg. After the expiration of this term she must, an she remaineth in the land, stand her trial for bigamy, treason, and implication in attempted murder.'--Signed and sealed by the Emperor this. There was no possible gainsaying; already the time allotted to her for flight was exceeded, and at any moment she might be arrested by the imperial order. She fled to Schaffhausen once more, and in Stuttgart there was great rejoicing; but the joy was dashed to the ground when the news came that Serenissimus had also disappeared. Had he fled with his evil mistress, then? It was positively averred, however, that she had gone alone with Madame de Ruth. Witchcraft, of course! The Graevenitzin had bewitched herself once before when she had disappeared for three days from the old castle. His Highness himself had said openly that she had returned to him in a flash of lightning. What more likely than that she should have spirited Serenissimus away with her to Switzerland? 'Nonsense,' said the Duchess-mother at Stetten; 'Eberhard is roaming in the woods, crying to the trees that he is a broken-hearted martyr!' And she hurried to Urach, taking up her abode in the very apartments which Wilhelmine had just vacated. It is on record that her maternal Highness caused the rooms to be swept and garnished, ere she entered, as though they were infected with the pest. 'So they are,' quoth this plain-speaking dame, 'with the pest of vice!' It is to be supposed that the Duchess-mother was right in her surmise regarding her son's forest wanderings, for a messenger arrived from Urach saying Serenissimus would re-enter Stuttgart with his mother in a few days' time; which he did, and was solemnly and publicly reconciled to the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha. The grateful burghers voted their Duke a free present of forty thousand gulden on his return, and to his Duchess ten thousand gulden. The Duchess-mother is reported to have remarked that, of a truth, it had been fitting had they paid her back a portion of the war indemnity. 'But it does not matter,' she said, 'so long as that absurd boy, my son Eberhard, remains at his duties in future.' Dear, proud, sensible old lady! God rest her well! To her mother's heart, the thirty-seven-year-old Duke of Wirtemberg, hero, traveller, incidentally bigamist, remained eternally 'that absurd boy, my son.' * * * * *