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.
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