Traveling would be impossible.

He heard the distant sound of a bell, and knowing that the telephone was calling, he ran down the stairway to the great room.

Julie had risen and was looking at the instrument with dilated eyes, as if it sounded a note of alarm, as if their happy escape was threatened by a new danger.

John believed that she had fallen asleep before the heat of the fire, and that the ring of the telephone had struck upon her dreaming ear like a shell.
"It's he! It's the terrible prince himself!" she exclaimed, her faculties not yet fully released from cloudy sleep.
"Very likely," said John, "but have no fear.

Zillenstein is only six leagues away at ordinary times, but it's six hundred tonight, with the greatest storm that I've ever seen sweeping in between us." He took down the receiver and put it to his ear.
"Who is there ?" asked a deep voice, which he knew to be that of Prince Karl.
"Castel, Your Highness." "You arrived without accident ?" "Wholly without accident, Your Highness.