plain. Where the wind dropped the snow rose at once. But these objects
were few and far between. The deadly monotony of the scene--the
trackless level, the preposterous dimensions of the plain, the sense of
distance that is conveyed only by the steppe and the great desert of
Gobi when the snow lies on it--all these tell the same grim truth to all
who look on them: the old truth that man is but a small thing and his
life but as the flower of the grass.

Across the plain of Tver, before the north wind, a single sleigh was
tearing as fast as horse could lay hoof to ground--a sleigh driven by
Paul Howard Alexis, and the track of it was as a line drawn from point
to point across a map.

A striking feature of the winter of Northern Russia is the glorious
uncertainty of its snowfalls. At Tver the weather-wise had said:

"The snow has not all fallen yet. More is coming. It is yellow in the
sky, although March is nearly gone."

The landlord of the hotel (a good enough resting-place facing the broad
Volga) had urged upon M. le Prince the advisability of waiting, as is
the way of landlords all the world over. But Etta had shown a strange
restlessness, a petulant desire to hurry forward at all risks. She hated
Tver; the hotel was uncomfortable, there was an unhealthy smell about
the place.

Paul acceded readily enough to her wishes. He rather liked Tver. In a
way he was proud of this busy town--a centre of Russian civilization. He
would have liked Etta to be favorably impressed with it, as any
prejudice would naturally reflect upon Osterno, 140 miles across the
steppe. But with a characteristic silent patience he made the necessary
preparations for an immediate start.

The night express from St. Petersburg had deposited them on the platform
in the early morning. Steinmetz had preceded them. Closed sleighs from
Osterno were awaiting them. A luxurious breakfast was prepared at the
hotel. Relays of horses were posted along the road. The journey to
Osterno had been carefully planned and arranged by Steinmetz--a king
among organizers. The sleigh drive across the steppe was to be
accomplished in ten hours.

The snow had begun to fall as they clattered across the floating bridge
of Tver. It had fallen ever since, and the afternoon lowered gloomily.
In America such visitations are called "blizzards"; here in Russia it is
merely "the snow." The freezing wind is taken as a matter of course.

At a distance of one hundred miles from