thick upon the hills and crept down into the valleys, encumbering his
path. The cold nipped his bones; he drove beneath great clouds and
through a stinging air, but of these discomforts he was not sensible.
For the mission he was set upon filled his thoughts and ran like a fever
in his blood. He lay awake at nights inventing schemes of evasion, and
each morning showed a flaw, and the schemes crumbled. Not that his faith
faltered. At some one moment he felt sure the perfect plan, swift and
secret, would be revealed to him, and he lived to seize the moment. The
people with whom he spoke became as shadows; the inns where he rested
were confused into a common semblance. He was like a man in a trance,
seeing ever before his eyes the guarded villa at Innspruck, and behind
the walls, patient and watchful, the face of the chosen woman; so that
it was almost with surprise that he looked down one afternoon from the
brim of a pass in the hills and saw beneath him, hooded with snow, the
roofs and towers of Ohlau.

At Ohlau Wogan came to the end of his luck. From the moment when he
presented his letter he was aware of it. The Prince was broken by his
humiliation and the sufferings of his wife and daughter. He was even
inclined to resent them at the expense of the Chevalier, for in his
welcome to Wogan there was a measure of embarrassment. His shoulders,
which had before been erect, now stooped, his eyes were veiled, the fire
had burnt out in him; he was an old man visibly ageing to his grave. He
read the letter and re-read it.

"No," said he, impatiently; "I must now think of my daughter. Her
dignity and her birth forbid that she should run like a criminal in fear
of capture, and at the peril very likely of her life, to a king who,
after all, is as yet without a crown." And then seeing Wogan flush at
the words, he softened them. "I frankly say to you, Mr. Warner, that I