If love were all! It was night, and I was in the cell wherein the King had lain in the Castle of Zenda.

The great pipe that Rupert of Hentzau had nicknamed "Jacob's Ladder" was gone, and the lights in the room across the moat twinkled in the darkness.

All was still; the din and clash of strife were gone.

I had spent the day hidden in the forest, from the time when Fritz had led me off, leaving Sapt with the princess.

Under cover of dusk, muffled up, I had been brought to the Castle and lodged where I now lay.