He paused and glanced back, up across the courtyard and at the silent stone faces of the house’s two adjoining wings.

How many times had he sat in the hunter’s box in the woods, scanning those very walls with his binoculars for any sight of Sabina, staring sometimes for hours at her window and the balcony to catch but a momentary glimpse of her figure?

Now her window was dark. Behind it she lay in her bed sleeping. He needn’t waste his time gazing at her window now and longing for her who lived behind it. Those days were past. He could put his schoolboy fantasies behind him. He was a man now. It was a man’s game… and he was about to walk off with the prize!

It sent a strange thrill through his frame to stand here, alone in the darkness, and to realize that at last he had them all in the power of his grasp—Sabina, her proud father, the whole lot of them!

And they yet knew nothing of it.

Here he stood, in the very heart of the baron’s empire, about to enter the depths of his garden itself, and up there the pompous fool slept, having no idea that his precious secret had been found out and that it was all about to come down on top of him!

He smiled at the irony of it.

He, Gustav von Schmundt, would soon possess all the power he needed to lay claim to the treasured rose garden and the entire estate von Dortmann, as well as the most prized jewel in all the region—the hand of the baron’s daughter!

He cast about him a final gaze, unable to keep the feeling of triumphant inner satisfaction from widening his smile still further, then turned and, walking beneath the stone arch, plunged into the sacred precincts of Baron von Dortmann’s Spring Garden.

This was no pleasure tour. Gustav knew exactly where he was going and what he was after. It wouldn’t take him long to confirm what he had suspected since earlier in the afternoon.

A noise in the night suddenly arrested his step.

He stiffened, ears perking up. It sounded like it had come from nearby, a shuffling sound followed by a thud. Now all was still again.

He stood several moments more, then hastened in the direction of the sound. Quickly becoming confused in the maze of paths, however, he lost his bearing on just where he thought he had heard it coming from.

Again he stopped. The night was silent.

It must have been an animal, perhaps a cow shuffling about, down in one of the barns.

He turned and attempted to retrace his steps and pick up his former direction.

In two or three minutes, walking through the shadowy pathways, he arrived at the place where he and Sabina had spoken together earlier.