not cherish tenderly enough! And he
was not there to protect her! There was no one there to save her!

"Did heaven look on
And would not take their part!"

Poor fellow, what had he done that fate should deal him such a blow as
this! Dumb, blind with anguish, he made no sign.

"What says the body when they spring
Some monstrous torture-engine's whole
Strength on it? No more says the soul."

Some of his pitying comrades lead him away, like one stupefied, and
take him back to Appledore. John knows his wife is safe. Though
stricken with horror and consumed with wrath, he is not paralyzed like
poor Ivan, who has been smitten with worse than death. They find
Karen's body in another part of the house, covered with blows and
black in the face, strangled. They find Louis's tracks,--all the
tokens of his disastrous presence,--the contents of trunks and drawers
scattered about in his hasty search for the money, and all within the
house and without, blood, blood, everywhere.

When I reach the cottage with the arnica for Maren, they have returned
to Smutty-Nose. John, her husband, is there. He is a young man of the
true Norse type, blue-eyed, fair-haired, tall and well made, with
handsome teeth and bronzed beard. Perhaps he is a little quiet and
undemonstrative generally, but at this moment he is superb, kindled
from head to feet, a firebrand of woe and wrath, with eyes that flash
and cheeks that burn. I speak a few words to him,--what words can meet
such an occasion as this!--and having given directions about the use
of the arnica, for Maren, I go away, for nothing more can be done for
her, and every comfort she needs is hers. The outer room is full of
men; they make way for me, and as I pass through I catch a glimpse
of Ivan crouched with his arms thrown round his knees and his head
bowed down between them, motionless, his attitude expressing such
abandonment of despair as cannot be described. His whole person seems
to shrink, as if deprecating the blow that has fallen upon him.

All day the slaughtered women lie as they were found, for nothing can
be touched till the officers of the law have seen the whole. And John
goes back to Portsmouth to tell his tale to the proper authorities.
What a different voyage from the one he had just taken, when happy and
careless he was returning to the home he had left so full of peace
and comfort! What a load he bears back with him, as he makes his
tedious w