staggered away into the darkness.

CHAPTER LXXIX

UNDER THE ICE.

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 a 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, bea