her direction through the trees, saw her, and stopped in her walk. It was
Miss Starbrow, and in the figure of the weeping girl she had recognised
Fan. Her face darkened, and she walked on, but presently she stopped
again, and stood irresolute, swinging the end of her sunshade over the
young grass. At length she turned and walked slowly towards the girl, but
Fan was sobbing with covered face, and did not hear her steps and
rustling dress. For some moments Miss Starbrow continued watching her, a
scornful smile on her lips and a strange look in her eyes as of a
slightly cruel feeling struggling against compassion. At length she
spoke, startling Fan with her voice sounding so close to her.

"Crying? Well, I am glad that your sin has found you out! Glad you have
met with some thief cleverer than yourself, who has stolen your booty, I
suppose, and left you penniless--a beggar as I found you! I admire your
courage in coming here, but you needn't be afraid; I'll have mercy on
you. You have punished yourself more than I could punish you; and some
day I shall perhaps see you again in rags, starving in the streets, and
shall fling a penny to you."

Fan had started at first with an instinctive fear--a vague apprehension
that she would be seized and dragged away to be shut up and tortured as
Miss Starbrow had desired. But suddenly this feeling gave place to
another, to a burning resentment experienced for the first time against
this woman who had made her suffer so cruelly, and now came to taunt her
and mock at her misery. It suffocated and made her dumb for a time. Then
she burst out: "You wicked bad woman! You beast--you beast, how I hate
you! Oh, I wish God would strike you dead!"

"How dare you say such things to me, you ungrateful, shameless little
thief!"