“How dare you say such things to me, you ungrateful, shameless little thief!” “You liar--you beast of a liar!” exclaimed Fan, still torn with the rage that possessed her. “Go away, you liar! Leave me, you wicked devil! I hate you! I hate you!” Miss Starbrow uttered a little scornful laugh. “You would have some reason to hate me if I were to shut you up for six months with hard labour,” she answered, turning aside as if about to walk away. To shut her up for six months! Yes, that was what she had tried to do with the assistance of a strong man and woman. And what other tortures and sufferings had she intended to inflict on her victim! It was too much to be reminded of this. It turned her blood into liquid fire, and maddened her brain; and struggling to find words to speak the rage that overmastered her, suddenly, as if by a miracle, every evil term of reproach, every profane and blasphemous expression of drunken brutish anger she had heard and shuddered at in the old days in Moon Street, flashed back into her mind, and she poured them out in a furious torrent, hurled them at her torturer; and then, exhausted, sunk back into her seat, and covering her face again, sobbed convulsively. Miss Starbrow's face turned crimson with shame, and she moved two or three steps away; then she turned, and said in cold incisive tones: “I see, Fan, that you have not forgotten all the nice things you learnt before I took you out of the slums to shelter and feed and clothe you. This will be a lesson to me: I had not thought so meanly of the suffering poor as you make me think. They say that even dogs are grateful to those that feed them. And I did more than feed you, Fan. That's the last word you will ever hear from me.” She was moving away, but Fan, stung by a reproach so cruelly unjust, started to her feet with a cry of passion. “Yes, I know you gave me these things--oh, I wish I could tear off this dress you gave me! And this is the money you gave me--take it! I hate it!” And drawing her purse from her pocket, she flung it down at Miss Starbrow's feet. Then, searching for something else to fling back to the donor, she drew out that crumpled pink paper which had been all the time in her pocket. “And take this too--the wicked telegram you sent me. It is yours, like the money--take it, you bad, hateful woman!” Miss Starbrow still remained standing near, watching her, and in spite of her own great anger, she could not help feeling very much astonished at such an outburst of fury from a girl who had always seemed to her so mild-spirited. She touched the crumpled piece of paper with her foot, then glanced back at the girl seated again with bowed head and covered face. What had she meant by a telegram? Curiosity overcame the impulse to walk away, and stooping, she picked up the paper and smoothed it out and read, “From Miss Starbrow, Twickenham. To Miss Affleck, Dawson Place.”