“I will stay yet two more days.  Madam, you need not fear.  I shall not importune you.  I give you those two days for reflection.  Unless I hear from you I shall leave Innspruck—­”

“In two days’ time?” suddenly exclaimed Clementina.

“On the evening of the 27th,” said the Prince.

Clementina laughed softly in a way which he did not understand.  She was altogether in a strange, incomprehensible mood that afternoon, and when he learnt next day that she had taken to her bed he was not surprised.  Perhaps he was not altogether grieved.  It seemed right that she should be punished for her stubbornness.  Punishment might soften her.

But no message came to him during those two days, and on the morning of the 27th he set out for Italy.

At the second posting stage, which he reached about three of the afternoon, he crossed a hired carriage on its way to Innspruck.  The carriage left the inn door as the Prince drove up to it.  He noticed the great size of the coachman on the box, he saw also that a man and two women were seated within the carriage, and that a servant rode on horseback by the door.  The road, however, was a busy one; day and night travellers passed up and down; the Prince gave only a passing scrutiny to that carriage rolling down the hill to Innspruck.  Besides, he was acquainted neither with Gaydon, who rode within the carriage, nor with Wogan, the servant at the door, nor with O’Toole, the fat man on the box.

At nightfall the Prince came to Nazareth, a lonely village amongst the mountains with a single tavern, where he thought to sleep the night.  There was but one guest-room, however, which was already bespoken by a Flemish lady, the Countess of Cernes, who had travelled that morning to Innspruck to fetch her niece.

The Prince grumbled for a little, since the evening was growing stormy and wild, but there was no remedy.  He could not dispute the matter, for he was shown the Countess’s berlin waiting ready for her return.  A servant of the Count’s household also had been left behind at Nazareth to retain the room, and this man, while using all proper civilities, refused to give up possession.  The Prince had no acquaintance with the officers of Dillon’s Irish regiment, so that he had no single suspicion that Captain Misset was the servant.  He drove on for another stage, where he found a lodging.

Meanwhile the hired carriage rolled into Innspruck, and a storm of extraordinary violence burst over the country.

CHAPTER XII