“I will go and make the tea, and get her away as soon as I can,” she thought, hurrying down the wide stairway, along the hall, and so into the kitchen again, where she had left Cheap Jane contentedly, puffing at her pipe. “Well, now, Mistress Broadcloth, I will put the tea to draw,” she began, then stopped and stared, and rubbed her hand across her eyes. The great kitchen was empty, save for the gray kitten under the stove, purring away in lazy contentment. The old woman and the big basket were vanished from the scene as if they had never been. The door by which she had entered a little while ago, stood wide open, letting in the cold and the gathering darkness. Mrs. Griffin ran down the steps and into the grounds in search of the missing peddler; but the darkness and a haze of snow were beginning to fall together, and they soon drove her into the house again. “Ah, well-a-day! the strange old creature has taken herself off without her tea, and just as well, perhaps, for I was on needles and pins for fear of being caught in her company,” commented the housekeeper. CHAPTER XL. Aline Rodney’s feelings on plunging through the broken ice into the cold, black waves of the river may be better imagined than described. A shiver of mortal cold and terror rushed over her as the icy current came in contact with her warm, tender young body. She went down, down, down, with a swift rush and a terrible sensation as of suffocation, into the infinite depths of death, it seemed to her, and then arose to the surface and felt the cold, sweet air in her face again with a sensation of exquisite relief. Aline had some little knowledge of swimming. She tried to hold herself up in the water until relief should come. And a great horror came over her at the thought of being whirled away under the ice and beyond all hope of rescue. How terrible it would be to perish miserably under that sheet of solid crystal, where but a little while ago she had sported gayly and fearlessly, but which now rose between her and the world like a glittering wall of destruction. She made an effort to keep from drifting away from the wide, ragged opening in the ice made by the falling through of her body. She knew that if once swept beneath that terrible crust her death would be certain. The sounds from above came to her faintly, deadened by the ringing in her ears, and by the wild shrieks of her brother nearer at hand. She was conscious of a vague anxiety over her mother, faint wonder if any of those people who hated her would try to save her life, and then a numbness induced by the fearful cold overcame her wholly, her arms ceased to beat the waves in frenzied endeavor, and she felt herself sinking again to rise no more. It was at that awful moment that Oran Delaney sprung boldly into the terrible death-trap, fearless of danger, and only intent on saving that frail, weak girl from imminent danger.