The hackman in his woolly greatcoat stared at the little dapper, smooth-shaven man, who eyed him in return, coolly insolent, lighting a cigar.

“I don’t want to go to the Willow Villa,” said Ruthven; “I want you to drive me past it.”

“Sir?”

“Past it.  And then turn around and drive back here.  Is that plain?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ruthven got into the closed body of the vehicle, rubbed the frost from the window, and peeked out.  The hackman, unhitching his lank horse, climbed to the seat, gathered the reins, and the vehicle started to the jangling accompaniment of a single battered cow-bell.

The melancholy clamour of the bell annoyed little Mr. Ruthven; he was horribly cold, too, even in his fur coat.  Also the musty smell of the ancient vehicle annoyed him as he sat, half turned around, peeping out of the rear window into the white tree-lined road.

There was nothing to see but the snowy road flanked by trees and stark hedges; nothing but the flat expanse of white on either side, broken here and there by patches of thin woodlands or by some old-time farmhouse with its slab shingles painted white and its green shutters and squat roof.

“What a God-forsaken place,” muttered little Mr. Ruthven with a hard grimace.  “If she’s happy in this sort of a hole there’s no doubt she’s some sort of a lunatic.”

He looked out again furtively, thinking of what the agency had reported to him.  How was it possible for any human creature to live in such a waste and be happy and healthy and gay, as they told him his wife was.  What could a human being do to kill the horror of such silent, deathly white isolation?  Drive about in it in a Cossack sleigh, as they said she did?  Horror!

The driver pulled up short, then began to turn his horse.  Ruthven squinted out of the window, but saw no sign of a villa.  Then he rapped sharply on the forward window, motioning the driver to descend, come around, and open the door.

When the man appeared Ruthven demanded why he had turned his horse, and the hackman, pointing to a wooded hill to the west, explained that the Willow Villa stood there.

Ruthven had supposed that the main road passed the house; he got out of the covered wagon, looked across at the low hill, and dug his gloved hands deeper into his fur-lined pockets.

For a while he stood in the snow, stolid, thoughtful, puffing his cigar.  A half-contemptuous curiosity possessed him to see his wife once more before he discarded her; see what she looked like, whether she appeared normal and in possession of the small amount of sense he had condescended to credit her with.

Besides, here was a safe chance to see her.  Selwyn was in New York, and the absolute certainty of his personal safety attracted him strongly, rousing all the latent tyranny in his meagre soul.