and with her own hand she opened the bedroom door and stood aside.

"Madam, I would not press my duty an inch beyond its limits," said the
magistrate. "I will stand in the doorway, and do you bid your daughter
speak."

The Princess-mother did not move from her position.

"My child," she said.

Jenny in the bedroom groaned and turned from one side to the other.

"You are in pain?"

Jenny groaned again. The magistrate himself closed the door.

"Believe me," said he, "no one could more regret than I the incivilities
to which I am compelled."

He crossed the room. Wogan heard him and his men descending the stairs.
He heard the door open and shut; he heard Chateaudoux draw the bolts.
Then he stepped out from the curtain.

"Your Highness, that was bravely done," said he, and kneeling he kissed
her hand. He went back into the embrasure, slipped the bundle over his
arm, and opened the window very silently. He saw the snow was still
falling, the wind still moaning about the crannies and roaring along
the streets. He set his knee upon the window-ledge, climbed out, and
drew the window to behind him.

The Princess-mother waited in the room with her hand upon her heart. She
waited, it seemed to her, for an eternity. Then she heard the sound of a
heavy fall, and the clang of a musket against the wall of the villa. But
she heard no cry. She ran to the window and looked out. But strain her
eyes as she might, she could distinguish nothing in that blinding storm.
She could not see the sentinel; nor was this strange, for the sentinel
lay senseless on the snow against the house-wall, and Mr. Wogan was
already running down the avenue.

Under the fourth tree he found Clementina; she took his arm, and they
set off together, wrestling with the wind, wading through the snow. It
seemed to Clementina that her companion was possessed by some new fear.
He said no single word to her; he dragged her with a fierce grip upon
her wrist; if she stumbled, he jerked her roughly to her feet. She set
her teeth and kept pace with him. Only once did she speak. They had come
to a depression in the road where the melted snow had made a wide pool.
Wogan leaped across it and said,--

"Give me your hand! There's a white stone midway where you can set your
foot."

The Princess stepped as he bade her. The stone yielded beneath her tread
and she stood ankle-deep in the water. Wogan sprang to her side and
lifted her out. She had uttered no cry, and no