The Duchess came towards him. She held out her hands in a gesture of appeal: 'Eberhard, be just to me! I bore it as long as I could, but that woman's presence was a daily torture to me. Have a mistress, if need be,' this last bitterly, 'but at least do not cause her to be my companion. It is not fitting.' The blood rushed to the Duke's face. 'Mademoiselle de Graevenitz is fit to be the companion of saints, of angels!' he retorted angrily. 'She will return to court, I warn your Highness.' He turned abruptly and left the Duchess's apartment. If the Duke, with the blindness of the enamoured, really had imagined peace to reign in his palace prior to his sojourn at Urach, on his return even love and anxiety could not hide the excitement and unrest which the departure of the favourite had caused in the castle of Stuttgart. Madame de Ruth, flinging etiquette to the winds, had met his Highness in the courtyard when he rode in from Urach, and had greeted him with the news of Wilhelmine's flight. The good lady was genuinely distressed, and had made unceasing search in the town, but naturally no one had thought of seeking in the Judengasse behind the Leonards Kirche. Wilhelmine seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth, and there were not wanting murmurers among the Duchess's servitors who averred that witches had ever been able to vanish at will, and that probably 'the Graevenitzin' would return in the form of a black cat or a serpent, and suddenly change into a woman again when it suited her. They were all in a flutter of superstitious excitement; and Maria the maid, who loved Wilhelmine, went about with reddened eyes, and was much questioned below stairs. The Duke, on hearing the news from Madame de Ruth, had repaired immediately to the Duchess, but, as we have seen, he had extracted no information from the lady, she having none to give. When his Highness left the Duchess's apartment he stormed up to Madame de Ruth's dwelling-room, and after some deliberation summoned Forstner and charged him with the unpleasant duty of leading a search party which was supplied with a ducal warrant to enter all houses of every grade in Stuttgart. Forstner, of course, urged patience; the missing one would return or communicate, he said; but the Duke greeted the word patience with such an outburst of anger that the 'Bony One' retired discomfited and gave orders for the search with apparent zeal.