"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.