Fan looked at her in astonishment. Could it be that it had never entered into Mary's heart to do this cruel thing? That raging tempest in her heart was fast subsiding. She began to collect her faculties.
“The woman met me,” she continued, “and took me a long way from the station to a little house. She tried to take me upstairs. She said you were waiting for me, but I looked up and saw Captain Horton peeping over the banisters—”
Miss Starbrow clenched her hands and uttered a little cry. Her face had become white, and she turned away from the girl. Presently she sat down, and said in a strangely altered voice, “Tell me, Fan, did you take some jewels from my dressing-table—a brooch and three rings, and some other things?”
“I took nothing except what you—what the telegram said, and Rosie put the things in a bag and got the cab for me.”
For a minute or two Miss Starbrow sat in silence, and then got up and said:
“Come, Fan.”
“Where?”
“Home with me to Dawson Place.” Then she added, “Must I tell you again that I have done nothing to harm you? Do you not understand that it was all a wicked horrible plot to get you away and destroy you, that the telegram was a forgery, that the jewels were taken to make it appear that you had stolen them and run away during my absence from the house?”
Fan rose and followed her, and when they got to the Bayswater Road Miss Starbrow called a cab.
“Where is your bag—where did you sleep last night?” she asked; and when Fan had told her she said, “Tell the man to drive us there,” and got in.