Agnes Barker rushed into the cold night so wrathfully that even the shadow that followed her seemed vital with hate. On they walked together—the girl and this weird shadow—blackening the snow with momentary darkness as they passed; the one tossing out her arms with unconscious gesticulation, the other mocking her, grotesquely, from the crusted snow.

She descended from the eminence upon which the house stood, into the hollow where Lina and Ralph had paused on the first day of their confessed love. Over the spot made holy by the feelings of this beautiful epoch, she trod her way in mad haste, reckless of the cold, which, but for the fiery strife within, must have pierced her to the vitals; Zillah had aroused her from sleep but half-robed—her dress had been loosened as she lay down, and the sharp wind lifted particles of snow with every gust, sweeping them into her bosom and over her uncovered head. Neither shawl nor mantle shielded her, but thus all exposed as she had risen from her sleep, she rushed on, mad as a wild animal which save in form, for that fatal moment, she was.

The snow upon the hills, drifted its white carpet out upon the Hudson, and even in the day time practised eye only could tell where the shore ended, and the water commenced. Agnes had no motive for crossing the river, and, for a time, she kept along the bank, going nearer and nearer to Ben Benson's boat-house, but perfectly regardless of that or anything else.

As she came out from among the evergreens close by Ben's retreat, a light, gleaming through its window, made her halt and swerve toward the river. Any vestige of humanity was hateful to her then, and she was glad to plunge into the cold winds which swept down the channel of the stream, that, lacking all other opponents, she might wrestle with them.

Out she went upon the sheeted river. It was white some distance from the shore, but in the centre lay a space of blue ice, with a surface like polished steel, and a deep, swift current rushing beneath. This frozen channel took an unnatural darkness from the gleam of snow on either side. Toward this black line the girl made her way, trampling down the snow like an enraged lioness, and laughing back a defiance to the winds as they drifted cutting particles of snow into her face and through the loose tresses of her hair.

It was in her face, this keen wind, beating against her, and closing the eyes which rage had already rendered blind. She left the snow and struck out upon the ice. That instant a cloud swept over the moon. Her shadow forsook her then—even her shadow! A step, a hoarse plunge, and a piercing cry rushed up from that break in the ice, a cry that cut through the air sharper than an arrow, piercing far and wide through the cold night! Then the moon came out, and revealed a ghastly face low down in the blackness, and two hands grasping the ragged edges of the ice, slipping away—clutching out again, and still again, so fiercely, that drops of blood fell after them into the dark current beneath. Still the white face struggled upward through masses of wet hair, and the baffled hands groped about fiercer, but more aimlessly, till both were forced away beneath the ice, sending back a shriek so sharp and terrible that it might have aroused the dead!—no, not the dead, for up in that stately mansion, frowning among the snows a little way off, a human soul had just departed—nor paused to look back, though the existence, which was its own great sin, followed close, till both stood face to face before the God they had offended!

But, in the stillness of the night, and in the depths of his honest sleep, Ben Benson heard the cry. He started from his bed, hurriedly dressed himself, and went out in great alarm, listening, as he went, for a renewal of that fierce cry; but, though he reached the ice, and bent over the yawning hole, nothing but the wail of the winds, and the rush of waters underneath, met his ear. Still, as he peered down into the darkness, a human face weltered up through the waters. Instantly, Ben threw himself upon the ice, plunged his arms downward, and rose staggering to his feet. In the grasp of his strong hands, he drew a human form half-way upon the ice. He had paused for breath, but horror gave him double strength; and, gathering the pale form in his arms, he laid it upon the ice, parting the long, dark hair reverently with his hands, and leaving the marble face bare in the moonlight.

"Lord a mercy on us!" he exclaimed, stooping over the cold form. "It's the young governess, dead as a stone! How on arth did she get here? Not a purpose, I hope to mercy; it wasn't a purpose. Poor critter, if it hadn't a been that the ice broke just here in the eddy, her poor body would a been miles down stream 'fore now. Instead of that, she was sucked under, and has been a whirling and a whirling the Lord of heaven only knows how long—how long—Ben Benson, be you crazy? Wasn't it her scream as woke you up? Ma' be there's a spark of life yet, and you a talking over her here. Go home, you old heathen; go home at 'onst. Poor young critter, I didn't like you over much, but now I'd give ten years of my old life to be sarten there was a drop of warm blood in this little heart!"

Ben knelt over the governess as he muttered those feeling words, and laid his great kind hand over the heart, but the touch made even his strong nerves recoil.

"It ain't a beatin'—it doesn't stir—she seems to be a freezing now under my hand. But, I'll try. God have mercy on the poor thing! I'll try."

Ben took the body in his arms, and carried it to the boat-house; but with all his earnestness and strength, he had no power to give back life, where it had been so rudely quenched. Pure or not, the blood in those veins was frozen to ice, and though Ben heaped up wood on his hearth till the flames roared up the wide-throated chimney, there was not heat enough to thaw a single drop. At last, Ben gave up his own exertions, and laid the dead girl reverently on his own couch; kneeling meekly by her side, and then he began repeating the Lord's Prayer over her again and again: for, when the boatman was in great trouble he always went back, like a little child, to the prayer learned at his mother's knee.