Fadéi, first coachman of Madame de Salvières, and, as she was wont to say, an old friend of her childhood--a statement that would certainly have horrified Laurence--cast a speculative glance toward the night-sky and the stars, sparkling icily above the lane of snow between the two walls of trees, and, bending sideways, he called out with perfect certainty, “Five o’clock, Highness!” Tatiana snuggled her head again into her double hood, and for the first time touched the middle horse with her whip, which she immediately replaced in its socket, for she was driving with both hands outstretched as the _yèmshiks_ do, and straight ahead, avoiding the finesses to which fingerless fur-lined gloves do not lend themselves. “Barine,” a stallion of extraordinary beauty and corresponding fire, sprang forward, dragging his two running-mates with him, so that the pace became terrific. Bending over the rigid bar of the leather apron, Tatiana encouraged the horses by an occasional shrill whistle, which, coming through her mask, had a peculiarly alarming sound, and although twice Fadéi had ventured an imploring hand upon her sleeve, she refused to relinquish the ribbons to him. It seemed to her somehow that were she--as she termed it--“not at the wheel,” her impatience to arrive, great as it already was, would be doubled. A night drive through her forests in winter was no novelty to her, and besides she was extremely anxious, for with the natural exaggeration of messengers in general and himself in particular, Platon had made the most of his evil news, and, to hear him, Tatiana might have believed that her nephew and sister-in-law were on the point of being put to the torture in short order. Of course she did not credit all that had been reported to her; but still, knowing Laurence as she knew her now, and also the mood of the Tverna peasantry ever since Basil’s unpopular marriage, she could not but feel far from reassured, and her hurry was well-nigh desperate. Luckily the storm blowing at the beginning of the night had ceased as suddenly as it had started, and from the hour of her departure from home, a brilliant moon had slid steadily down the slope of the steel-blue Heavens, diffusing a grateful silver effulgence aslant the forest roads. Also there was a pallid aurora pulsating to the north, somewhere behind the tree-screen, mounting and descending in gold-shot primrose billows that were reflected from aloft, and shed an intermittent glamour upon the sleeping world. “What folly is that woman not capable of!” reflected Tatiana. “Platon spoke of her wanting to run away with Garrassime and Piotr! That really would be the climax, and in such a case the people might be hard to deal with.” On and on flew the sleigh, swift as a swallow skimming over water, and pretty nearly as silent; for Tatiana was driving without bells, and the whispered “zzzzipp” of the smooth runners was scarcely audible at such a speed.