the evening a knock at the door brought me back to my objective
senses. I had been oblivious to the outside world all day.

"We thought you might like some coffee and supper, and I have brought it
to you," said a kind miner, who was also a neighbor.

"Wife and I will come and stay all night here if you will go to our
cabin and get some rest."

I thanked him, declining his last offer, but drank the hot coffee. I
then asked him if he would go out and secure the use of the adjoining
vacant log cabin for me, so that I could immediately move into it.

This he did, returning in half an hour, asking what further service he
could render.

I told him I would move all my belongings into the log cabin, leaving
Olga here. This was her house, and it was still to be her home.

By midnight this was done. The man had gone home after making me promise
to call him when I wanted help.

In Olga's cabin of two small rooms there remained only a stove, a couch
upon which she still rested, and an easy lounging chair.

The door at the front I soon padlocked on the outside, and barricaded
within, leaving the back door as the only entrance. Next a man was hired
to dig a narrow trench about the whole cabin to conduct all surface
water away from the lot. During the hours following I busied myself with
the receptacle which would contain the still beautiful, but now
discarded body, of my darling Olga.

Carefully removing a part of the flooring in the center of the room, I
began digging underneath. The ground was frozen. A pick and shovel in my
hands found their way into the frost-locked earth and gravel; but at a
depth of about five feet I stopped.

Her bed was deep enough; also long and wide enough. Its walls were of
ice.

They had dressed her in a robe of pale blue veiling, distinctly suited
to her, upon which rested the long braids of her yellow hair, while her
only ornament was her wedding ring upon her finger.

How perfectly serene and happy she looked! I fully expected her to open
her lips and speak. When this did not happen, the sense of my awful loss
surged back into my brain, seeming almost to take my reason; but another
quiet hour by the side of my darling partially restored me.

It was midnight. A perfect storm of grief had just spent itself and left
me weak and weary. I threw myself, with a heavy sigh, into the depth of
the lounging chair.

Presently I slept. What was that? A bit of beautiful yellow light
floated gracefu