The queen herself has bolted the doors of the anteroom on the inside, and no other door leads into her boudoir and bedroom, except through this anteroom.

She is therefore perfectly secluded, perfectly secure.
Speedily and in haste she envelops herself in a long black mantle, the hood of which she draws well over her head and brow, and which completely covers and conceals her form.
And now she presses on a spring inserted in the frame of a picture.
The picture flies back and shows an opening, through which a person can quite conveniently pass out.
Catharine does so.

Then she carefully pushes the picture back to its place from the outside, and for a long time walks on in the passage hollowed out of the solid wall, till groping along she at last lays hold again of a knob in the wall.

She presses on it; and now at her feet opens a trap-door, through which a feeble light forces its way and renders visible a small narrow staircase there situated.

Catharine enters and descends the steps with winged feet.