'No, not that; you are to be moved to Hohen-Urach. . . . Madame, they will try you for your life. Alas! his Highness believes you have cast a spell upon the Duchess and caused her misfortune. Asperg is too close to Stuttgart.' She smiled at him. 'It does not signify, dear friend. One prison is like another, I suppose; but I shall miss my jailor! Let me thank you, Monsieur, for your great courtesy to the fallen Land-despoiler.' She spoke almost gaily, and the governor turned away his head. 'I would help you, Excellency; pray God I may be able to serve you one day,' he said huskily. 'Tell them I shall start to-morrow, when the snowstorm is over. I shall be prepared.' 'I regret--Excellency--In truth, I scarce know how to tell you--It is ordered that you shall travel to-day--immediately,' he said. 'A prisoner has no choice, Monsieur,' she answered bitterly. * * * * * As the cortege passed out of the Hohenasperg gate, the first snowflakes fell, and when they reached the village at the foot of the hill there was a whirling storm. The journey to Urach through the snow was terrible. For hours the cavalcade wandered in the snowdrifts between Nuertingen and Urach, and when at length the unhappy woman was housed for a few hours' rest in a village inn, her slumber was broken by the sounds of rude merriment in the hall below her sleeping-room, where the peasants were dancing. She was wont to say afterwards that this trivial episode had been one of her most painful experiences. Her nerves were on the rack, for she expected that some cruel trial awaited her at Urach. She was terribly weary from the long hours of wandering, and from cold and exposure; her pride had been galled by the gaping, laughing, jeering, mocking crowd of peasants which had stood round her while the captain of the guard made arrangements for her night's lodging. Then her sensitive ear was tortured by the peasants' music, which beat on and on in monotonous, inharmonious measure all through the night. If suffering is atonement for sin, certain it is that the Graevenitz agonised at Urach. Her imprisonment was infinitely more rigorous than it had been at Hohenasperg. The governor treated her with scant consideration, and answered her questions shortly. He forbade the faithful Maria either to go to the town or to speak with the other inhabitants of the fortress prison. Thus the Graevenitz had no knowledge of the doings in the world. She tasted real imprisonment, the torture of being entirely cut off from human interests. Also she was left in ignorance of her future. Death, banishment, perpetual imprisonment? She knew nothing. She penned passionate appeals to his Highness, but the governor informed her that he could forward no writings from a prisoner awaiting trial. 'When shall I be tried, and for what offences?' she demanded. 'I am not at liberty to say,' he returned, and left her.