If in the stillness of that Christmas night Wilhelmine, realising this, agonised, as countless women have realised and suffered, the next morning she showed no sign of the night's anguish. Unless her mood of unrelenting decision was the outcome thereof. She had decided to present to Eberhard Ludwig two alternatives: either Johanna Elizabetha must retire to a dower-house, leaving the favourite mistress of Stuttgart, or the court of Wirtemberg must follow their Duke and the Landhofmeisterin to Tuebingen, Urach, or wherever it suited her to direct, leaving the Duchess in a mournful, deserted Stuttgart. In any case, it must be provided that no possibility should exist of an humiliation such as she had suffered on the preceding evening. And as she intended to remain at the head of Wirtemberg's court, it was imperative Johanna Elizabetha should be removed. Murder no longer being politic--the Emperor had frightened the Graevenitz off that track--it remained to devise some other scheme whereby the Duchess could be rendered unobnoxious. Upon Eberhard Ludwig's arrival at the Jaegerhaus, he was immediately informed of his mistress's decision. Again a small event precipitated the formation of an important plan. Johanna Elizabetha had wept incessantly during the Christmas Eve supper, and the Duchess-mother's sharp tongue had rasped the Duke's irritable nerves till he had lost control of his temper and had roughly bidden his wife and mother to leave him in peace. There had followed a painful scene. Thus his Highness was well disposed towards any scheme which would release him from his inharmonious family circle. Yet he hesitated to acquiesce in the daring project of the entire removal from Stuttgart of court and government. Wirtemberg had been governed at Stuttgart, and the chief ducal residence had been there since the twelfth century. As to Johanna Elizabetha's retirement to a dower-house he reminded Wilhelmine that the proposal had been made, and that the Duchess's answer was decisive: so long as she did not mourn her husband's death she would remain in residence at Stuttgart's castle. The Duke added that he had no power to force her to leave. Serenissimus and the Landhofmeisterin were together in the famous yellow damask room of the Jaegerhaus. The blue-tiled stove radiated a pleasant warmth, and from the windows the lovers could see the snow-covered Graben, the main thoroughfare of the town. The cheerful jingle of sleigh-bells rang out as the peasants' sledges glided over the snow. The Christmas Day service in the Leonards Kirche had ended, and the traditional dole of silver pieces had been distributed in the Duke's name, an old custom of mediaeval times.