By the side of her daughter the Countess Lanovitch was as the willow, swayed by every wind, in the neighborhood of the oak, crooked and still and strong.
"In Petersburg you pledged yourself to help me," said De Chauxville.

And although she knew that in the letter this was false, she did not contradict him.

"I came here to claim fulfilment of your promise." The hard blue eyes beneath the fur cap stared straight in front of them.
Catrina seemed to be driving like one asleep, for she noted nothing by the roadside.

So far as eye could reach over the snow-clad plain, through the silent pines, these two were alone in a white, dead world of their own.

Catrina never drove with bells.