'Mademoiselle Wilhelmine von Graevenitz,' she said slowly, 'I will give you one chance of becoming an honest woman. You are unnecessary to me in your present capacity, and I have decided to remove you from my service.' She rose with the dignity she could assume at times. 'The reasons for my decision you know well enough, and, indeed, it were not fitting for me to discuss them with you. If you will resign your charge, and leave the country to-day, promising never to return, I will announce that, to my regret, you have been called back to your home. As I know you came here penniless, I offer you a free present of ten thousand gulden, under the conditions I have named. If you will not accept this I shall have you driven from my house, and I shall command that no one in Wirtemberg shall shelter you under pain of loss of entry at court.' Johanna Elizabetha was really impressive and dignified, infinitely pathetic too; for it was a futile assumption of an authority hers by right, and, in fact, absolutely non-existent. 'I await your answer,' she added, a little tremulously. 'And I give you my answer, here and now, for to-day and for as long as I choose. And my answer is--No!' She said it boldly, but her heart was beating violently; after all, she too was fighting for her life, for all she had found beautiful, for the man she loved, and for the ease and charm of existence, the 'fine linen and fair raiment, honour and power,' without which she could and would not live. The Duchess looked at her curiously. Certainly she was very beautiful, standing straight, tall, and strong; radiant with health, magnificent in her proud decision of being; with head thrown back, hands clasped behind her like a child saying a lesson--the singing attitude, which the Duchess had often seen before with angry, grudging admiration. 'Is this your decision?' Johanna Elizabetha asked once more. 'God in Heaven! why did you come here? I offer you wealth and peace; cannot you go and leave me what is mine?' 'Yours?' broke out Wilhelmine impetuously. 'Yours? You know what you say is untrue! Yours!'