"Thank you; but you are, no doubt, on your way to Rakowicz."
"Rakowicz does not lie far out of your road," Wanda interrupted him, hastily, "and from thence you can have the conveyance to yourself." The words were spoken hurriedly, almost anxiously. Waldemar slowly let the bridle drop. Some seconds passed before he answered.
"I should do better to go straight on to Wilicza."
"I beg of you, though, not to go on; but to come with me."
This time the anxiety in Wanda's voice was so unmistakable that the refusal was not renewed. Waldemar gave over his horse to the coachman, who had dismounted at a sign from his mistress, and instructed him to lead it with all possible care to a certain village, and there to leave word that it should be sent for. He then mounted the sledge, swinging himself up into the driver's seat behind, and grasping the reins. The place by the young Countess's side remained empty.
They drove on in silence. The offer had been so simple, so natural, a decided rejection of it would have appeared singular, nay, uncourteous, between such near relatives; but easy intercourse had long since grown impossible to these two, and the unexpected meeting made their embarrassment more marked and painful. Waldemar devoted his attention exclusively to the reins, and Wanda wrapped herself more closely in her furs, never once turning her head.
They were already in the beginning of March; but it seemed this year as if winter never would give way. Before taking its departure, the cruel season once more let loose all its terrors on the poor earth, lying happily expectant of spring's first breath. A heavy snowstorm, lasting through an entire day, had clothed it anew in the white shroud of which it had so slowly and painfully divested itself. Again the country lay rigid under its pall of snow and ice, and stormy wind and freezing cold strove together for the mastery.
The storm with its thick drifting snow had subsided on that morning; but it was as gloomy and cold a winter afternoon as though the month had been December. The horses stepped out merrily, and the sledge seemed to fly over the smooth earth; but its two occupants sat silent and motionless, paralysed, as it were, by the icy breath of that chill March day. It was the first time they had been alone together since that hour by the forest lake. Dreary and melancholy as had been that autumn evening, with its falling leaves and surging mist-visions, some last lingering throbs of life had then quickened Nature's pulse; but now even these were stilled. The silence of death lay on the broad fields, stretching away on all sides, so white and endless. Nothing but snow all around, far as the eye could reach! The distant horizon lay wrapped in fog, and the sky was heavy with dense snow-laden clouds which drifted slowly, lazily along--else all was numb and dead in these wintry desert solitudes.
The road now left the open lands and turned into the woods which it had hitherto skirted. Here in the sheltered forest path, the snow lay so thick that the horses could only advance at a foot-pace. The driver loosed the reins which up to this time he had held so tightly, and their giddy, rapid flight was changed into a gentle, gliding onward movement. The dark fir-trees on either side bowed under their load of snow. One of the low-hanging branches brushed against Waldemar's head, and a perfect cloud of white flakes was showered down on him and his companion. She half-turned now for the first time and said, pointing to the trees--
"The road to Wilicza lies all the way through a forest as thick as this."