regular way. The time to think had not come yet; sleep alone seemed sweet
to her, and in its loving arms she would lie, for it seemed like one that
loved her always, like her poor dead mother who had never turned against
her and used her cruelly. Before she closed her heavy eyes the landlady
came into her room again to see her, and Fan gave her a shilling to get
some tea and bread-and-butter for her breakfast next day.




CHAPTER XI


When Fan awoke, physically well and refreshed by her long slumber, it had
been light some time, with such dim light as found entrance through the
clouded panes of one small window. The day was gloomy, with a bitterly
cold blustering east wind, which made the loose window-sashes rattle in
their frames, and blew the pungent smell of city smoke in at every crack.
She sat up and looked round at the small cheerless apartment, with no
fireplace, and for only furniture the bed she was lying on, one cane-
chair over which her clothes were thrown, and a circular iron wash-stand,
with yellow stone jug and ewer, and underneath a shelf for the soap dish.

She shivered and dropped her head again on the pillow. Then, for the
first time since that terrible experience of the previous day, she began
to realise her position, and to wonder greatly why she had been subjected
to such cruel treatment. The time had already come of which Mary had once
spoken prophetically, when they would be for ever separated, and she
would have to go out into the world unaided and fight her own battle.
But, oh! why had not Mary spoken to her, and told her that she could no