the slippery ice skated along for many yards, making a
noise like the chirping of a vast flock of finches.

Kenric stepped back yet further and stood ready to meet the wolf, and,
if need were, grapple with it. But the animal, startled at the sound
made by the sliding sword, ran off towards the shore and quickly
disappeared among the shadows of the trees.

What was the meaning of that wolf being there upon the ice? Kenric stood
in confused wonderment. And if, as he half supposed, this white-breasted
animal was not as other wolves, which fear to tread on ice -- if it was
in very truth the werewolf form which the wild Aasta had power to
assume, why had she not recognized him? Why had she run away? Was it
that she had now taken to the cover of the woods, that she might
presently reappear in her own maidenly figure? There was something in
all this that passed his understanding.

He followed a few paces in the direction taken by the wolf, then,
remembering his sword, he turned aside. He looked about upon the clear
icy surface for his weapon. The force that his arm had given it had sent
it far away towards the margin of the mere, to the same spot, indeed,
where the werewolf had first been seen. At last he saw the shining blade
lying in the midst of the line of light shed by the bright moon upon the
polished ice.

He went towards it and bent down to pick it up. The ice where it lay was
smooth and transparent as a sheet of glass, and it seemed to Kenric as
he bent over it that he saw in it the reflection of his own face. So
distinct were the features that he recoiled in sudden alarm. Then he
fell down upon his knees, resting upon his outstretched hands. He fixed
his astonished eyes upon the face in the ice. A wild cry escaped him.
The face was not his own!

Drawing back for a moment he looked once more at the strange image. The
rounded cheeks were white as snow; the eyes were motionless and glassy;
the beautiful bloodless lips, slightly parted, revealed a row of pearly
teeth. It was the face of Aasta the Fair.

Kenric tried to touch her, to take her in his arms. But the intervening
ice inclosed her as in a crystal casket. He saw that the stray locks of
her long hair, floating in the clear water, had been caught by the quick
frost, and that they were now held within the firm thick ice. Upon her
fair white throat there were marks as of a man's rough fingers. She held
her right hand upon her breast, and in its grasp there wa