'Beloved, the coaches await us; shall we begin our journey?' The Landhofmeisterin started. Yes; that was how Eberhard Ludwig had summoned her in the old, happy days. Her nerves had tricked her, it was only an echo of long ago. Could everything, indeed, be ended? Was she leaving Ludwigsburg for ever? Ah, no, no! how absurd! Of course Serenissimus would recall her directly this blustering King had gone back to his drill at Berlin! And yet---- She moved slowly round her rooms. Fifteen years since Frisoni had conducted her to her pavilion! She recalled how she and Eberhard Ludwig had laughed at the little Italian's ruse, when he led them up and down corridors and stairs in order to reach her apartments from his Highness's rooms. The memory of their mirth was torture to her. Once more she took the key from her bosom and, passing through the statue gallery, she gained the hiding-place behind the arras. She listened, but there was no sound; she pressed the secret spring of the tapestry door and entered the writing-closet. Slowly she walked round the room; she had not come to rob the bureau this time, nor to upbraid her lover, nor to tempt him once again. No; she had come to bid farewell, to look her last upon the familiar scene. One of the Duke's gauntleted hunting-gloves lay on the floor; she stooped and lifted it and put it to her lips. Then the full sense of her loneliness came to her, and she sobbed aloud. She hurried away, and her last vision of that well-known room was blurred by her tears. One parting look round her own apartments, and she passed out on to the roofed terrace which led from the Corps de Logis to the West Pavilion. Here her own face met her on sculptured vaulting and ornamented wall. Her face, young, smiling, voluptuous, surrounded by the emblems of music held by Cupids. Love, music, and herself. What a mockery it seemed to her, this open homage, this enduring monument of a dead passion! With steady tread she paced down the flight of stone steps to the second terrace. Again a statue with her features met her eye. Frisoni had designed the pedestal. She remembered how she had laughed at the Italian for drawing a figure of Time with huge wings and holding giant sickle-blades in his oversized hands. She had called it awkward and ill-conceived, and the Italian had told her that Time was an awkward giant; that he crushed strength and glory sometimes, and left weakness and shame to live. She had hardly noted the answer then, but it came back to her now. She looked at the sickle-blades and shuddered, knowing that Time had mown her down at last. * * * * *