Thus Wogan won the victory. But he was most careful to conceal it. He
walked by her side humble as a whipped dog. If he had to point out the
way, he did it with the most penitent air; when he offered his hand to
help her over a snow-heap and she struck it aside, he merely bowed his
head as though her contempt was well deserved. He even whispered in her
ear in a trembling voice, "Jenny, you will not say a word to O'Toole
about the remarks I made of him? He is a strong, hasty man. I know not
what might come of it."
Jenny sneered and shrugged her shoulders. She would not speak to Wogan
any more, and so they came silently into the avenue of trees between
"The White Chamois" and the villa. The windows in the front of the villa
were dark, and through the blinding snow-storm Wogan could not have
distinguished the position of the house at all but for the red blinds of
the tavern opposite which shone out upon the night and gave the snow
falling before them a tinge of pink. Wogan crept nearer to the house and
heard the sentinel stamping in the snow. He came back to Jenny and
pointed the sentinel out to her.
"Give me a quarter of an hour so far as you can judge. Then pass the
sentinel and go up the steps into the house. The sentinel is prepared
for your coming, and if he stops you, you must say 'Chateaudoux' in a
whisper, and he will understand. You will find the door of the house
open and a man waiting for you."
Jenny made no answer, but Wogan was sure of her now. He left her
standing beneath the dripping trees and crept towards the side of the
house. A sentry was posted beneath her Highness's windows, and through
those windows he had to climb. 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. He climbed on the sill of the lower
window; by the side of that window a stone pillar ran up the side of the
house to the windows on the first floor. Wogan had taken note of that
pillar months back when he was hawking chattels in Innspruck. He set his
hands about it and got a grip with his foot against the sash of the
lower window. He was just raising himself when he heard a noise above
him. He dropped back to the ground and stood in the fixed attitude of a
sentinel.