She was hot, her angry blood was racing through her veins. She was, in her way, as impetuous as Drownlands. She had been suffered in her girlhood by her father to follow her own bent, to do just what she liked. But, indeed, there had been no occasion for him to cross her, their interests were identical. Good-natured though Zita was, she was masterful. She had sense, but sense is sometimes obscured by passion. She sat biting her nails. A fire was in her cheeks, and now and then the tears forced themselves into her burning eyes. What could Mark have to call him to Red Wings? What possible business could he have with Kainie? Red Wings was not on his land; the mill did not drain his dykes. Zita marvelled how long Mark would remain with Kerenhappuch. Would he sit down with her in her cabin? Would their conversation turn on herself—Zita? Would Mark say that she was sulky? What would Kerenhappuch reply? Would she not say, 'What else can you expect from a girl who is a vagabond? We who lead settled lives in mills and farmhouses know how to behave ourselves. What can you get out of a chimney but soot? What does a marsh breed but gadflies?' It is really wonderful what a cloud of torments an ingenious mind can rouse if it resolves to give run to fancy. Perhaps a woman is more prone to this than a man. She conceives conversations relative to herself; she puts into the mouths of the speakers the most offensive expressions relative to herself. She wreathes their faces with contemptuous smiles, gives to their voices insulting intonations, and finally assumes that all the brood of her festering brain is real fact, and not mirage. It was so now with Zita. She was startled from her reverie of self-torment by a shock in the boat. She looked up, startled, and saw before her a man with long arms and large hands, dark-haired and dark-eyed. He was handsome, but his face bore an expression of sour discontent. The thin lips were indicative of a sharp and querulous temper, and the checks seemed as though they could not dimple into laughter. 'What are you doing in the lighter?' asked the man, whom Zita recognised as Ephraim Beamish, the orator. 'I suppose I have as much right to be in the boat as you,' answered the girl peevishly. 'No doubt. We neither have any right anywhere. We are both poor. I know who you are—the Cheap Jack girl. I hear you have been taken into Prickwillow. Wish you happiness. It is not the place I should care to be in. Drownlands is not the man to clothe the poor, house the wanderer, feed the hungry, without expecting his reward—and that here. He does nothing of good to any one but to serve his own ends. He has just had me turned out.' 'Turned out of what?'