The town of Gretz stands upon a hill, and there was something very exhilarating in the wild way in which the "troika" (team of three horses) dashed down into the plains with all its harness bells merrily ringing.
The povosska was a curiously long carriage, quite long enough to lie down in at full length with comfort, and having a hood to shelter one from sun and rain. Felix, as an old traveler who knew the road, had all his arrangements, even to mosquito netting, to let down back and front at night. The luggage was secured behind, but the hand luggage was all stowed easily inside with the two passengers; and had she been in spirits for laughter, Rona would have laughed heartily at the number of provisions which Felix had procured. There was no danger of their starving!
The weather, which had been bad for the preceding two days, had now cleared up, and the sun poured down upon the wide expanse of steppe, heaving and undulating all around. By the time they had gone ten miles there was no sign of human habitation, except the road they followed. No house, no cultivation, no travelers, no cattle, nothing but widespreading desolation.
And there they sat together, in this remarkable vehicle, as once before they had sat together upon a canal barge. The past rolled back acutely upon the girl's mind. She recalled the breathless rush together through the mean streets, his upholding grasp about her. She remembered the relief of nestling down into his arms by the fire in the night-watchman's cabin, and the stupor of exhaustion in which she had sunk down upon her hay bed, while the smooth, gliding motion of the Sarah Dawkes soothed her pain into unconsciousness.
Then she recalled the awakening in the dainty white bed of the Cottage Hospital, Denzil's visit, and Denzil's extraordinary kindness; and so her mind flitted on to the final scene in the old summer-house. She had vowed to be this man's wife!
Oh, no, it was a very different man to whom her promise had been given. Somebody who was humble and fervent, not cold and mocking. Somebody who loved her very much, not somebody who despised her. She turned and looked at Felix. Having made her as comfortable as he could, he was seated in his corner reading a Russian newspaper. He had asked her just such questions as seemed necessary, but no more. He had not, in so many words, asked her whether she were engaged to Denzil. Apparently he accepted as final the letter she had written to him. She began thinking, striving to remember exactly what she had said in that letter. And as she gazed at him, at the firm line between his lips, the squareness of his jaw, the breadth of his well-modeled forehead, she thought that had he come in person to claim her, instead of writing, she would hardly have found courage to say him nay.
In a sudden access of indignation she resolved not to let her mind dwell upon a person who, evidently, was not concerning himself with her at all. She turned her eyes upon the ribbon of road that wriggled like a snake before them, away into the unknown. She marked the glowing sun move downward toward the west. She watched the gesticulations of the uncouth driver, and the lines of the far horizon. How would she have been feeling had the evening been stealing down upon her all alone in the wild plain, with that man as her sole companion? She knew that she should not have dared to close her eyes.
She felt thankful that she had met Felix before seeing Denzil—before the brothers had met. Yet now that she saw her former lover, she found him so unlike her memory of him, that it was almost like beginning all over again with a stranger. Yet not quite. That glittering vein of vivid memory which danced before her eyes in the dull rock of the past—surely he shared it? How much—how little did he remember?
As the slow hours rolled by she began to wonder whether he meant to send her altogether to Coventry. He was now no longer reading his paper, but sat gazing upon the distance with fixed eyes, and lips so firmly folded that it seemed they could never unclose. She felt that at all costs she must break this weird silence. It was charged with too much feeling.
"David," she said, pitifully, "talk to me a little."