He needed that quarter of an hour to wait for a suitable moment when the sentry would be at the far end of his beat.

But that sentry was fuddling himself with a vile spirit distilled from the gentian flower in the kitchen of "The White Chamois." Wogan, creeping stealthily through the snow-storm, found the side of the house unguarded.

The windows on the ground floor were dark; those on the first floor which lighted her Highness's apartments were ablaze.

He noticed with a pang of dismay that one of those lighted windows was wide open to the storm.

He wondered whether it meant that the Princess had been removed to another lodging.