Fan had risen again, white and trembling at that awful sight; and unable to endure it longer, she sprang to the door, and crying out with terror, flew down to the kitchen. The cook returned with her, and on entering the room they discovered their mistress in a mad fit of hysterics, shrieking with laughter, and tearing her clothes off. The woman was strong, and seeing that prompt action was needed, seized her mistress in her arms and threw her on to the couch, and held her there in spite of her frantic struggles. Assisted by Fan, she then emptied the contents of the toilet jug over her face and naked bosom, half drowning her; and after a while Miss Starbrow ceased her struggles, and sank back gasping and half fainting on the cushion, her eyes closed and her face ghostly white.
“You see,” said the cook to Fan, “she never had one before, and she's a strong one, and it's always worse for that sort when it do come. Lor', what a temper she must have been in to take on so!”
Between them they succeeded in undressing and placing her on her bed, where she lay for an hour in a half-conscious state; but later in the day she began to recover, and moved to the couch near the fire, while Fan sat beside her on the carpet, watching the face that looked so strange in its whiteness and languor, and keeping the firelight from the half-closed eyes.
“Oh, Fan, how weak I feel now—so weak!” she murmured. “And a little while ago I felt so strong! If he had been present I could have torn the flesh from his bones. No tiger in the jungle maddened by the hunters has such strength as I felt in me then. And now it has all gone, and he has escaped from me. Let him go. All the kindly feeling I had for him—all the hopes for his future welfare, all my secret plans to aid him—they are dead. But it was all so sudden. Was it to-day, Fan, that I saw you sitting in Kensington Gardens, crying by yourself, or a whole year ago? Poor Fan! poor Fan!”
The girl had hid her face against Mary's knee.
“But why do you cry, my poor girl?”
“Oh, dear Mary, will you ever forgive me?” said Fan, half raising her tearful face.
“Forgive you, Fan! For what?”
“For what I said to-day in the Gardens. Oh, why, why did I say such dreadful things! Oh, I am so—so sorry—I am so sorry!”
“I remember now, but I had forgotten all about it. That was nothing, Fan—less than nothing. It was not you that spoke, but the demon of anger that had possession of you. I forgive you freely for that, poor child, and shall never think of it again. But I shall never be able to feel towards you as I did before. Never, Fan.”