whether it meant that the Princess had been removed to another lodging.  He climbed on the sill of the lower window; by the side of that window a stone pillar ran up the side of the house to the windows on the first floor.  Wogan had taken note of that pillar months back when he was hawking chattels in Innspruck.  He set his hands about it and got a grip with his foot against the sash of the lower window.  He was just raising himself when he heard a noise above him.  He dropped back to the ground and stood in the fixed attitude of a sentinel.

A head appeared at the window, a woman’s head.  The light was behind, within the room, so that Wogan could not see the face.  But the shape of the head, its gracious poise upon the young shoulders, the curve of the neck, the bright hair drawn backwards from the brows,—­here were marks Wogan could not mistake.  They had been present before his eyes these many months.  The head at the open window was the head of the Princess.  Wogan felt a thrill run through his blood.  To a lover the sight of his mistress is always unexpected, though he foreknows the very moment of her coming.  To Wogan the sight of his Queen had the like effect.  He had not seen her since he had left Ohlau two years before with her promise to marry the Chevalier.  It seemed to him, though for this he had lived and worked up early and down late for so long, a miraculous thing that he should see her now.

She leaned forward and peered downwards into the lane.  The light streamed out, bathing her head and shoulders.  Wogan could see the snow fall upon her dark hair and whiten it; it fell, too, upon her neck, but that it could not whiten.  She leaned out into the darkness, and Wogan set foot again upon the lower window-sill.  At the same moment another head appeared beside Clementina’s, and a sharp cry rang out, a cry of terror.  Then both heads disappeared, and a heavy curtain swung across the window, shutting the light in.

Wogan remained motionless, his heart sinking with alarm.  Had that cry been heard?  Had the wind carried it to the sentry at the door?  He waited, but no sound of running footsteps came to his ears; the cry had been lost in the storm.  He was now so near to success that dangers which a month ago would have seemed of small account showed most menacing and fatal.

“It was the Princess-mother who cried out,” he thought, and was reminded that the need of persuasions was not ended for the night with the conquest of Jenny.  He had to convince the Princess-mother of his authority without a line of Prince Sobieski’s writing to support him; he had to overcome her timidity.  But he was prepared for the encounter; he had foreseen it, and had an argument ready for the Princess-mother, though he would have preferred to wring the old lady’s neck.  Her cry might spoil everything.  However, it had not been heard, and since it had not been heard, Wogan was disposed to forgive it.

For the window was still open, and now that the curtain was drawn no ray of light escaped from the room to betray the man who climbed into it.