He believed that she had left the castle without resistance of any kind.

She would be glad to escape from Zillenstein and Auersperg, no matter where that escape might take her.
Another half-hour and the crest was but a hundred yards or so away.

How thankful he was now that he had put on extra speed despite the ascent and had driven the machine hard, because the road would soon be blotted from sight! Heavy flakes of snow had begun to fall and with the rising wind they were coming faster and faster.
He dimly made out a pine wood on his right, and, then, in the center of it the outline of a low building which he knew must be the hunting lodge.

He slowed down the machine, took the last little curve, and stopped before the door of the lodge.

But in that minute the snow had become a driving white storm.
He leaped out, knocked hard on the door of the lodge, and, no answer coming, threw himself heavily against it.