“To the station.  I beg of you not to delay me.  I am in a great hurry to catch the 3:20 south-bound train.  If you doubt me, come to the station with me.”  An inspiration came to me.  “Please see,” I added impressively, “that no one hinders me.  I am on the King’s business.”

“His Majesty’s business?  Ach! since when has His Majesty chosen an Englishman to dispatch his affairs?  I will proceed with you to the station.”

And he kept his word.  When he saw the gateman examine my ticket and passports and smile pleasantly, he turned on his heel, convinced that there was nothing dangerous about me.  He climbed on his horse and galloped away.  He might have caused me no end of delay, and time meant everything in a case like mine.  Scarcely had I secured a compartment in a first-class carriage than the wheels groaned and the train rolled out of the station.  My brow was damp; my hands trembled like an excited woman’s.  Should I win?  I had a broken cigar in my pocket.  I lit the preserved end at the top of the feeble carriage lamp.  I had the compartment alone.  Sleep!  Not I. Who could sleep when the car wheels and the rattling windows kept saying, “The innkeeper knows!  The innkeeper knows!” Every stop was a heartache.  Ah, those eight hours were eight separate centuries to me.  I looked careworn and haggard enough the next morning when I stepped on the station platform.  I wanted nothing to eat; not even a cup of coffee to drink.

To find conveyance to the inn was not an easy task.  No one wanted to take the drive.  Finally I secured a horse.  There was no haggling over the price.  And soon I was loping through the snowdrifts in the direction of the old inn.  The snow whirled and eddied over the stubble fields; the winds sang past my ears; the trees creaked and the river flowed on, black and sluggish.  It was a dreary scene.  It was bitter cold, but I had no mind for that.  On, on I went.  Two miles were left in the rear.  The horse was beginning to breathe hard.  Sometimes the snow was up to his knees.  What if the old man was not there?  The blood sank upon my heart.  Once the horse struck a slippery place and nearly fell, but I caught him in time.  I could now see the inn, perhaps a mile away, through the leafless trees.  It looked dismal enough.  The vines hung dead about it, the hedges were wild and scrawny, the roses I knew to be no more, and the squirrel had left his summer home for a warmer nest in the forest.  A wave of joy swept over me as I saw a thin stream of smoke winding above the chimney.  Some one was there.  On, on; presently I flew up the roadway.  A man stood on the porch.  It was Stahlberg.  When I pushed down my collar his jaw dropped.  I flung the reins to him.

“Where is the innkeeper?” I cried with my first breath.

“In the hall, Herr.  But—­”

I was past him and going through the rooms.  Yes, thank God, there he was, sitting before the huge fireplace, where the logs crackled and seethed, his grizzled head sunk between his shoulders, lost in some dream.  I tramped in noisily.  He started out of his dream and looked around.