'Au revoir, Monseigneur,' she said.
'Adieu, Madame; this is the last act of the comedy called the Great Intrigue,' he answered.
Yet she tarried till the last moment at La Favorite. It was a terrible leave-taking. She wandered round her pretty rooms, looking her last at the graceful devices, the slender traceries on wall and ceiling, at the things she had loved—the beautiful porcelains, the delicate, brocaded hangings. Then she passed out on to the terrace. What a wondrous summer evening it was! The sun was sinking low in the west—when the last ray had vanished the soldiers would come to drag her away. It was time, she must hasten—and yet she lingered. She leaned on the balustrade and contemplated the palace. Her thoughts travelled back to the days when Ludwigsburg was still a-building, and she and Eberhard Ludwig had planned the gardens together.
'Here should be a parterre of roses,' she had said.
'Nay, jasmine and heliotrope here; the roses must be beneath your window to sigh out their souls before your shrine,' he had answered.
Could it be ended? The habit of years was too strong, she could not realise. She listened to the summer sounds in the garden: the rustle of the gentle breeze in the chestnut-trees, the chirping of the grasshoppers, the bees droning over the flowers. Spring was past, it was summer. 'Ah! winter for me; winter and sadness for ever now,' she moaned. The sun was sinking—she must fly. 'Farewell happiness!' she murmured, and with bent head she passed down the terrace steps and entered her coach.
As she drove down the avenue she heard a bugle ring out from the Ludwigsburg casern.
'Ride faster, hasten to Freudenthal!' she called to her postillions, and at a gallop the Landhofmeisterin's coach thundered away westwards to the distant line of hills where lay Freudenthal. Once she turned as she passed through the Ludwigsburg gates. She turned and saw the great roofs of the palace which had been reared for her, and whence she was henceforward banished for ever.