Wilhelmine was informed of the accident by Zollern, who was both distressed for the sake of his old friend's pain, and much disturbed that the projected departure could not take place, for he did not consider Wilhelmine safe in Stuttgart. He knew that the feeling against her increased each day, owing chiefly to the gossip concerning her witch practices. It was her habit to read late at night, and the people believed she was occupied in brewing magic philters and composing incantations. They vowed they had seen two shadows on her window-blinds, which of a truth they may have seen, for often old Frau Hazzim came to visit her secretly at night. The Jewess was entirely under the spell of Wilhelmine's attraction, and the Grävenitz was learning many things from her nocturnal visitor, who had a vast knowledge of herbs and medicaments, the traditional code of doctoring handed down in her family. Strict Jewess though she was, she had many receipts for love potions, and she knew much of various poisons. Thus the Stuttgarters were not mistaken when they averred they had seen a second shadow on the blind, and considering Frau Hazzim's grotesque features, it is hardly surprising that the superstitious and fearful observers believed that this second shadow was the witch's familiar spirit.
Wilhelmine's servants were questioned at the market, and they replied that their mistress received no visitors in the dead of night, for Wilhelmine was naturally careful that even her servants should not be aware of Frau Hazzim's visits, which, considering the ill fame of the Jews in those days, was absolutely necessary. She therefore was wont herself to admit her visitor by a small door which opened on to the garden at the back of the Jägerhaus. So the terrified, fascinated watchers saw, with horror, this mysterious second shadow on the closed blind, and it was said that by incantations the witch summoned this evil being, for her own servants must know had any person from the mortal world been in the house!
Of this story Zollern was not aware, but he knew enough to recognise the dangerous reputation which his friend enjoyed. Wilhelmine herself was perfectly conscious that there was an element of danger for her, and she was disturbed that by Madame de Ruth's untoward accident she was obliged to remain in Stuttgart. That she was a reputed witch she knew, but far from being alarmed she was slightly flattered and amused at the notion, and deeming herself secure in the Duke's powerful protection she had no fear of any serious annoyance. Her only apprehension was that some murderous attack might be made upon her when she drove out, so she remained more than ever secluded and hidden in the Jägerhaus and the walled-in Lustgarten, her one amusement being Frau Hazzim's nightly visits.
Wilhelmine was half dupe of her own magical practices, and she was arduous in her studies of old black-letter books on the subject of spirit-raising, love potions, spells, and the rest of those meddlings with the unknown forces which have fascinated mankind for countless ages under various forms.
Towards the end of May the weather changed, and sultry heat reigned over Wirtemberg. Stuttgart lies deep in a valley, sheltered by hills, and the heat in the town is often terrible. The sudden change from the chill spring to glowing summer was unbearable to Wilhelmine, immured in the Jägerhaus, and she longed for the cool freshness of the Rothwald where she had been accustomed to drive, but Zollern so strongly advised her not to show herself in the town, that she consented to forego this pleasure while Müller was in Stuttgart. He had preached before the Duchess, upon whom his passionate eloquence, the Biblical turn of his phrases, and his denunciations of all things joyful, had made a deep and pleasing impression. She caused the Pietist to visit her daily and instruct her in the stern belief. Müller told her Highness the story of his conversion: how he had been a worldly, but he hoped a pure, pastor of the State religion; how that an evil and lustful woman had sought to seduce him, and he mentioned Güstrow as the place where his temptation had been offered him. The stroke told: her Highness started visibly. He continued by indicating that this abandoned woman was a witch, and finally let the Duchess understand that, having triumphantly resisted the temptress's sinful wiles, he had sought and found strength in the Pietist movement. Even a slower intellect than that of Johanna Elizabetha could not have failed to associate Wilhelmine von Grävenitz with the temptress of Güstrow; and when in answer to her Highness's query, whether the evil woman had been punished for her wickedness, Müller threw himself at the Duchess's feet and told her openly that the contaminating female was the Grävenitz, whom he had followed from Güstrow—he, the poor instrument of God's righteous wrath, her Highness indeed felt that here was the vengeance of the Almighty coming upon her enemy. Müller was sincere enough in his abhorrence of the woman who had resisted and then insulted him. The fanatical practices of the Pietists had inflamed his mind, and he really believed God had chosen him to humble the wanton. Old Frau von Grävenitz had talked freely of the favours and honours showered upon her daughter at Stuttgart, and Müller's mad physical jealousy was aroused, for he at once realised that Wilhelmine had become Eberhard Ludwig's mistress. This, together with his fierce fanatical Pietism, had sufficed to turn the man's brain. Thus mixed and contending motives, as is so often the case, formed a fixed and single purpose, and Müller had preached his way to Stuttgart, where he meant to accomplish his object of vengeance upon Wilhelmine or die in the attempt. He knew that to gain an extensive hearing from the crowd in Stuttgart he must earn a reputation as preacher in the neighbourhood, so he began his campaign by lecturing in the open air at many towns and villages of Wirtemberg. Pietism was rife all over the country, and the preacher was received with enthusiasm, and his fame, as we have seen, spread rapidly, even reaching at length the Duchess. Müller had never dreamed of gaining so great a personage as her Highness, and he was astounded when he received her command to preach at the castle; but this gave him renewed confidence in himself, and it seemed to his half-crazy mind to be a confirmation of his divine mission of revenge on the sinful. At present he had formed no definite plan as to how his vengeance was to be accomplished; he merely meant, if possible, to inflame public opinion against Wilhelmine to such an extent as to cause her to be driven from Wirtemberg. With unfailing energy Müller preached sometimes four or five sermons daily, whenever and wherever he managed to attract a crowd. At first he contented himself with pronouncing violent diatribes against sin: the term conveyed to him only one species of human weakness, and all his sermons were on the subject of bodily lust. He had named Wilhelmine 'a sinner, an instigator of wickedness,' at Tübingen, and he had quickly noted the approval on his hearers' faces. Now in Stuttgart he went further, and actually accused her of witchcraft as well. His zeal grew, each day increased by his own words, till he preached openly a religious crusade against her. Osiander, informed of these sayings, caused him to be warned that the Church could not countenance a religious preacher who thus instigated the people to revolutionary acts. The better sort of Pietists—sober burghers, for the most part—deserted their idol, and his congregations were now chiefly composed of the worst characters of the town. It certainly was unfortunate that the Grävenitz had been unable to seek the shelter of Neuhaus, yet Zollern and Stafforth reflected there could be little actual danger if she remained at the Jägerhaus, only taking the air in the walled-in Lustgarten; but they urged her not to venture out of this shelter for a few weeks, after the expiration of which time they argued the popular excitement would have died out, or if it had not, they would make arrangements for her residence in some safe place across the frontier of Switzerland. Neuhaus they considered to be too near to Tübingen, where, they heard, there was much hostility against Wilhelmine.
Meanwhile each day the heat became more intense, and the Favourite grew more impatient of being forbidden to drive out. One evening, as she sat disconsolately in her salon, a faint, fresh breeze floated in through the open window. It was fragrant and delightful after the long, stifling hours, and it seemed to her like an invitation from the outer world, that world of tree and flower for which she yearned. How she longed to drive away out of the reeking, low-lying town, and wander in the cool Red Wood! Still the Lustgarten was a resource, and its quaint sixteenth- and seventeenth-century embellishments delighted her. She rose, and taking a lace mantilla, arranged it round her head. She passed out of the small door at the back of the Jägerhaus, and strolled slowly along in the direction of the grotto. As she passed the gates leading from the garden to the high-road, she called to the sentry, telling him that should Monseigneur de Zollern seek her before she returned, he should be informed that she had gone to the Duke Christopher's Grotto. At first the soldier pretended not to hear, and the Grävenitz was obliged to approach him and give her message.
She asked, angrily, if he was deaf, and was informed in the usual peasant idiom that he 'could hear as well as another.'
'Well, give my message to any one who inquires for me,' she said haughtily, and walked on.
The man frowned evilly at her, and she recollected that the maid Maria, once when she had accompanied her mistress on a stroll in the Lustgarten, and they had passed the same sentry, had told her that he was the lover of Johanna Elizabetha's waiting-maid, the woman who had always been so insolent to Wilhelmine at the castle. 'He would do me harm, that lout, if he could,' Wilhelmine reflected as she walked on, and the man's frowning face haunted her for a time, but soon the freshness of the evening breeze and the garden's beauty drove all unquiet thoughts from her mind.
She wandered slowly through the trees of the pheasant garden, pausing a moment to look at the gorgeous plumage of the birds in their gilded cages. Then she came to the rosery shut off from the rest of the garden by tall beech-trees, where splashed the fountain near the marble seat on which the lovers had sat together after the theatricals, and where Eberhard Ludwig had agonised when she was hidden in the Judengasse. She passed the new Lusthaus, and looked up with a sigh at the balcony where Serenissimus and she had stood together, and he had told her Forstner called him a ridiculous poet fellow, because he loved the starlit woods at night. She came to the famous fourteenth-century maze, where the cypress-trees had grown so high and dense that it was really a place to lose oneself in, did one not possess the clue to the intricate windings. She walked outside the maze, breathing in the fragrance of the sun-kissed cypress, and turned into the orangery, and here she lingered a while in the alleys of formally cut trees. Then she walked on, and finally gained the wilderness which surrounded the famous grotto; this was a long construction of rocks and shells, very quaint, no doubt, in the days when it was built, yet Time had further enchanted it, adding melancholy and mystery to the half-ruined place. There was a deep, stagnant tank before the grotto, covered with weeds and growing things. In the centre of this tank, among lusty nymphs and playful dolphins, a huge Triton sat on his rocky throne, and from his trident a few drops of water still oozed slowly.
