One day two travelling coaches rolled into Freudenthal--the Sittmann tribe arrived. It was but ill received by the Graevenitz. Why had they come? she asked. Her sister informed her that Serenissimus had broken up the court of Ludwigsburg; he was to reside henceforth at Stuttgart. Had she not heard? Oh, yes! His Highness was reconciled with the Duchess, and it was disagreeable for former members of the Ludwigsburg court nowadays. This latter was said in a whiny tone of reproach. 'Get you gone to your own apartments, my sister and my sister's brats! If stay you must at Freudenthal, then stay, but leave me now,' the Graevenitz said; and though she was no longer the all-powerful Landhofmeisterin, still there was that about her which made the parasites shrink back. But they had done enough, had they not? in telling her thus roughly that the woman she had loathed and despised with all jealousy's venom during twenty years, had triumphed over her at last. The Graevenitz stood before one of the most galling of life's lessons, she had to bow to the inexorable commonplace. Her whole being was agonised; she was breasting the dark waters of despair, she was living a tragedy, but everyday life had to go on as usual: the necessary routine of it, the dressing, the eating, the lying down to rest at night. She heard the village children singing on their way home from school, and the harvesters driving merrily to the fields. Sometimes she would cry out in protest against Nature, against the unalterable, indifferent working of the universe: the smiling sun, the peace of summer evenings. All things went their way heedless of her tragedy. Summer blossomed gloriously; then the long, weary days grew shorter, and autumn brought endless nights to the stricken woman. Once, twice she had written to Serenissimus, but no answer came to her. The Erbprinz still battled with death. Eberhard Ludwig and Johanna Elizabetha watched together at his bedside, and the Erbprincessin sat stonily silent in the darkened room whose gloom seemed deepened by the poor girl's overshadowed mind. Then in October came the news that Death had conquered; the Erbprinz had passed away, and the Erbprincessin, half-mad already, had fallen into such despair that her clouded soul grew utterly black, and she raved in hopeless insanity. Truly God's hand was heavy upon Wirtemberg. A few days after this terrible news the Graevenitz, wandering moodily in the Freudenthal garden, heard the rattle of an approaching troop of horse. He was coming to fetch her, of course--her lover, her trusted one. She had known he must come! And she hurried away to her tiring-room to don her finest raiment. She would meet him like a bride. Was it not fitting that she should be gorgeously attired on this great day of triumph--this renascence of joy in her life? The gown of golden cloth lay spread out for her; she always kept it ready, for she knew he would come.