Rulers of Kings by Gertrude Atherton

Fessenden shivered and sat up in bed. It was the first time he had ever heard sounds in the house at this hour, and even the birds and the cocks were still asleep. He felt more oppressed than curious, and, dressing hastily, opened his window and slipped out upon the veranda. The moon shone on vast fields of ice and snow, on white peaks sharply defined against the dark starry sky, on great stretches of woods whose heavy spruce and naked maples were laden and glittering. The lake was a sheet of ice several feet in depth. Fessenden had driven a team across it yesterday to the opposite woods, where the men were chopping trees blown down in a recent storm. The thermometer was very low, but the air so still that the cold had no sting in it. Without the house the world might have been dead; but not so within. Several people seemed to be moving about in a curious and stealthy manner. Suddenly some one ran down the hall and back again.

Immediately after there was a scream from Christina, followed by a silence so sudden and complete that it seemed profounder than that without.