The lakes of frozen water would have attracted many skaters during the day, had not the engrossing excitement relative to the trial of the rioters engaged the public attention. The frost had set in with redoubled hardness on the morrow of the riot, and in four days even the Lark was turned to stone within its embankments. As Zita looked out into the night, she could see the heavy sky, burdened with black clouds, that were ragged as a torn fringe, or a moth-eaten pall, about the black hard bank of the river, that stood up sharply against the sky. The cold was so biting in the fireless room that Zita drew the velvet curtains about her, which were suspended over her window, covered her shoulders, and wrapped them about her bosom. There was no light in the room save the wan reflection from the horizon. Had there been, she would have formed a pretty picture, folded in crimson velvet, with her oval face and dark amber hair peeping out of the folds. She looked dreamily through the window. A wave of regret had come over her after the exaltation caused by the sense of self-sacrifice. She considered how that she had loved Mark, had valued his regard for herself, had delighted in his society. He had never said to her that he loved her, yet there had been a look in his blue eyes, a pressure of his fingers when he took her hand, a softness of intonation in his voice when he spoke to her, that had said more than words, that had assured her heart that she was dear to him. And how happy she had been when she believed that! A solitary child, with no belongings and belonging to none, a waif thrown upon the desolate fens, she had found herself lifted into a new region of brightness. Then Mark had become cool, and had held aloof from her. She had discovered that he was engaged to Kainie, and could not become disentangled from this tie. He had been constrained to resign himself to it. Now his interest, his sympathies, were enlisted on behalf of that girl, because she was treated with injustice and was exposed to danger. Now he was about to take Kainie to his house—now, this very evening. A feeling of resentment against the girl who stood between herself and happiness swelled in Zita's heart; Kainie threw down the palace of delight she had built up in the cloudland of hope and fancy. Kainie snatched Mark from her; and it was for Kainie that she—Zita—had given up the inheritance offered her by Drownlands. In the darkness Zita's brow darkened. Angry feelings surged in her bosom and sent waves of fire through her pulses. She would defy the world. What need she care for the chatter of slanderous tongues? Conscious of her own integrity, she would brave public opinion. She snatched the will from her bosom, that she might tear it in pieces, and then she would run to the master and bid him make another in her own favour, as first proposed. Why should she not be his heir?