“Oh, what a cruel thing to do! What a heartless letter! What a barbarous woman!” cried Constance, tears of keenest distress starting to her eyes, as she hastened to Fan's side, holding out her hands.
But Fan would not be caressed; she started as if stung to her feet, her kindling eyes and flushed cheeks showing that her grief and despondence had all at once been swallowed up in some other feeling.
“Give me the letter back,” she demanded, holding out her hand for it, and then, when the other hesitated, astonished at her changed manner, snatched it from her hand, and began carefully smoothing and refolding it, for Constance had crumpled it up in her indignation.
“Fan, what has come over you? Are you going to quarrel with me because that unfeeling, purse-proud, half-mad woman has treated you so badly? Ah, poor Fan, to have been at the mercy of such a creature! I would tear her bank-notes into shreds and send them back to her agent—”
“Leave me!” screamed Fan at her, stamping on the floor in her rage.
Constance stood staring at her, mute and motionless with astonishment, so utterly unexpected was this tempest of anger, and so strange in one who had seemed incapable of any such violent feeling.
“Very well, Fan, I shall leave you if you wish it,” she said at length with some dignity, but in a pained voice. “I did not understand this outburst at first. I had almost lost sight of the fact that I am in a sense to blame for your misfortune. I regret it very bitterly, but that is no comfort to you, and it is only natural that you should begin to hate me now.”
“I do not hate you, Constance,” said Fan, recovering her usual tone, but still speaking with a tremor in her voice. “Why do you say that?—it is a cruel thing to say. Do you not know that it is false? I shall never blame you for what has happened. You are not to blame. I have lost Mary, but she is not what you say. You do not know her—what right have you to call her bad names? I would go away this moment and never see you again rather than hear you talk in that way of her, much as I love you.”
This speech explained the mystery, but it astonished her as much as the previous passionate outbreak. That the girl could be so just to her, so free from the least trace of bitterness against her for having indirectly caused that great unhappiness, and at the same time so keenly resent her sympathy, which she could not easily express without speaking indignantly of Miss Starbrow—this seemed so strange, so almost incongruous and contradictory, that if the case had not been so sad she would have burst into a laugh. As it was she only burst into tears, and threw her arms round the girl's neck.
“Darling Fan,” she said, “I understand you now—at last; and shall say nothing to wound your feelings again. But I hope—with all my heart I hope that I shall one day meet this—meet Miss Starbrow, to have the satisfaction of telling her—”