“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.” “Mary, Mary, what have I done!” “Nothing, child. It is not anything you have done, or that you have left undone. But I took you into my house and into my heart, and only asked you to love and trust me, and you forgot it all in a moment, and were ready to believe the worst of me. A stranger told you that I had secretly planned your destruction, and you at once believed it. How could you find it in your heart to believe such a thing of me--a thing so horrible, so impossible?” Fan, with her face hidden, continued crying. “But don't cry, Fan. You shall not suffer. If you could lose all faith in me, and think me such a demon of wickedness, you are not to blame. You are not what I imagined, but only what nature made you. Where I thought you strong you are weak, and it was my mistake.” Suddenly Fan raised her eyes, wet with tears, and looked fixedly at the other's face; nor did she drop them when Mary's eyes, opening wide and expressing a little surprise at the girl's courage, and a little resentment, returned the look. “Mary,” she said, speaking in a voice which had recovered its firmness, “I loved you so much, and I had never done anything wrong, and--and you said you would always love and trust me because you knew that I was good.” “Well, Fan?” “And you believed what Rosie said about me, and that I was a thief, and had taken your jewels and ran away.” Mary cast down her eyes, and the corners of her mouth twitched as if with a slight smile.