'Ah! I had forgotten you. Well, tell me your story now. I am listening,' she said. It would serve to pass the time till his Highness came, for he would come, she told herself. The dwarf stood trembling before her, ridiculous, grotesque, infinitely pathetic. He poured forth the tale of his miserable life, of the taunts, the jeers, the kicks, the cuffs, the lack of food which he had often suffered in the midst of the lavish splendour of Ludwigsburg. Incidentally he let her see how the very servants of the palace spoke of her, and how they mocked her authority when they dared. His was a pitiful life-history, and the Landhofmeisterin was moved to compassion; her own heart was sore, and already the crust of world-hardness had begun to melt under the tears which were welling up ready to be shed. She told the dwarf that he was free to return to that humble cottage in the Swiss valley which he called home. There and then she wrote out a passport for him and an order for a seat in the Duke's diligence as far as the frontier; she gave him a purse of gold, and, more precious still, an official command to all to treat the deformed traveller with consideration; also, as postscriptum, an intimation that if the dwarf did not reach his home safe and unrobbed, she would cause the whole Secret Service to track the offender, who would suffer the utmost penalty of the law. With this document the dwarf could have travelled from one end of Wirtemberg to the other in safety; nay, more, he was sure of even servile acceptance from high and low, for never was monarch so feared in his domains as the Guestrow adventuress in the Dukedom of Wirtemberg. 'God reward you for this great good,' the dwarf said as he turned to leave her presence, and she answered sadly: 'It is too late; God's hand is heavy upon me.' But she did not believe it. The hours passed, and still the Landhofmeisterin waited for Eberhard Ludwig. She watched the grey dawn slip into the sky, then the glow of the awaking sun came, and she knew that she waited in vain. CHAPTER XX SATIETY 'A Cloud of sorrow hanging as if Gloom Had passed out of men's minds into the air.' SHELLEY. FRIEDRICH WILHELM and his Highness of Wirtemberg started early on the morning after the state banquet. A number of wild boars had been tracked in the Kernen forest and good sport was anticipated. The Landhofmeisterin from her couch heard the stir of the sportsmen's departure. In happier days she had waved farewell to her lover from her window, now she turned her face to the wall and moaned in anguish. But the day's routine should be carried out as usual, that she vowed; no one should pity her, no one notice that she feared her sun had set. She dressed according to her wont in a magnificent gown, sat patiently for an hour in her powdering closet while the obsequious Frenchman dressed her hair elaborately and powdered the curls afresh.