of the low window, and
stands outside in the freezing snow, with one light garment over her
cowering figure, shrinking in the cold winter wind, the clear
moonlight touching her white face and bright hair and fair young
shoulders. "Scream! scream!" shouts frantic Maren. "Somebody at Star
Island may hear!" but Anethe answers with the calmness of despair, "I
cannot make a sound." Maren screams herself, but the feeble sound
avails nothing. "Run! run!" she cries to Anethe; but again Anethe
answers, "I cannot move."

Louis has left off trying to force the door; he listens. Are the
women trying to escape? He goes out-of-doors. Maren flies to the
window; he comes round the corner of the house and confronts Anethe
where she stands in the snow. The moonlight shines full in his face;
she shrieks loudly and distinctly, "Louis, Louis!"

Ah, he is discovered, he is recognized! Quick as thought he goes back
to the front door, at the side of which stands an ax, left there by
Maren, who had used it the day before to cut the ice from the well. He
returns to Anethe standing shuddering there. It is no matter that she
is beautiful, young, and helpless to resist, that she has been kind to
him, that she never did a human creature harm, that she stretches her
gentle hands out to him in agonized entreaty, crying piteously, "Oh,
Louis, Louis, Louis!" He raises the ax and brings it down on her
bright head in one tremendous blow, and she sinks without a sound and
lies in a heap, with her warm blood reddening the snow. Then he deals
her blow after blow, almost within reach of Maren's hands, as she
stands at the window. Distracted, Maren strives to rouse poor Karen,
who kneels with her head on the side of the bed; with desperate
entreaty she tries to get her up and away, but Karen moans, "I cannot,
I cannot." She is too far gone; and then Maren knows she cannot save
her, and that she must flee herself or die. So, while Louis again
enters the house, she seizes a skirt and wraps round her shoulders,
and makes her way out of the open window, over Anethe's murdered body,
barefooted, flying away, anywhere, breathless, shaking with terror.

Where can she go? Her little dog, frightened into silence, follows
her,--pressing so close to her feet that she falls over him more than
once. Looking back she sees Louis has lit a lamp and is seeking for
her. She flies to the cove; if she can but find his boat and row away
in it and get help! It is not there; there