But Miss Starbrow had not been entirely bound up in the girl: she had other affections and interests in life, and great as the shock had been and the succeeding anger, she had recovered her self-possession, and had set herself to banish Fan from her remembrance. She was ashamed to let her servants and friends see how deeply she had been wounded by the little starving wretch she had compassionately rescued from the streets. Outwardly she did not appear much affected; and when Rosie, with well-feigned surprise, asked if the police were not to be employed to trace the stolen articles and arrest the thief, she only laughed carelessly and replied: “No; she has punished herself enough already, and the trinkets have no doubt been sold before now, and could not be traced.” Rosie hurried away to hide the relief she felt, for she had been trembling to think what might happen if some cunning detective were to be employed to make investigations in the house. Now, however, when Mary began to recover from the amazement caused by Fan's narrative, a dull rage took such complete possession of her that it left no room for any other feeling. The girl sitting there with bent head seemed no more to her than some stranger who had just come in, and about whom she knew and cared nothing. All that Fan had suffered was forgotten: she only thought of herself, of the outrage on her feelings, of the vile treachery of the man who had pretended to love her, whom she had loved and had treated so kindly, helping him with money and in other ways, and forgiving him again and again when he had offended her. She could not rest or sit still when she thought of it, and she thought of it continually and of nothing else. She rose and paced the room, pausing at every step, and turning herself from side to side, like some savage animal, strong and lithe and full of deadly rage, but unable to spring, trapped and shut within iron bars. Her face had changed to a livid white, and looked hard and pitiless, and her eyes had a fixed stony stare like those of a serpent. And at intervals, as she moved about the room, she clenched her hands with such energy that the nails wounded her palms. And from time to time her rage would rise to a kind of frenzy, and find expression in a voice strangely harsh and unnatural, deeper than a man's, and then suddenly rising to a shrill piercing key that startled Fan and made her tremble. Poor Fan! that little burst of transitory anger she had experienced in the Gardens seemed now only a pitifully weak exhibition compared with the black tempest raging in this strong, undisciplined woman's soul.