Chapter 41

Fan resolved to employ Captain Horton again, and as it was too late in
the day to see him at his office on her way home, she wrote that evening,
asking him to find her a suitable house near East London, removed from
other houses, with garden and trees about it, and with two cool rooms for
her friends on the ground floor, and a room for herself. She knew, she
wrote, that she was putting him to great inconvenience, but felt sure
that he would be glad to serve her.

When the next day came she began to be sorely troubled in her mind; or
rather the trouble which had been in it ever since her return from
Kingston, and which she had tried not to think about, had to be faced,
and it looked somewhat formidable. For she had not yet seen Mary, in
spite of her promise made at their last parting to go to her immediately
on her return from Kingston. But much had happened since their parting:
she had met and had become friendly with the man that Mary hated with a
great hatred; and she feared that when she came to relate these things,
which would have to be related, there would be a storm. But she could no
longer delay to encounter it, and Fan knew, better than most perhaps, how
to bow her head and escape harm; and so, putting a bold face on it--
though it was not a very bold face--she got into a cab about noon and had
herself driven to Dawson Place.

Her friend received her in a strangely quiet way, with just a kiss which
was not warm, a few commonplace words of welcome, and a smile which did
not linger long on her lips.

"Why are you so cold, Mary?"

"Why are you shamefaced, Fan?"

"Am I shamefaced? I did not know."

"Yes, and I can guess the reason. You did not keep your word to me,
though you knew how anxious I was to see you at the end of your fortnight
at Kingston; and the reason is that you have something on your mind which
you fear to tell me--which you are ashamed to tell."

"No, Mary, that is not so. I am not ashamed, but----"

"Oh yes, of course, I quite understand--_but!_"

"Dear Mary, if you will be a little patient with me you shall know
everything I have to tell, and then you will know exactly why I didn't
come to you the moment I got back to town. For the last two or three days
I have been in pursuit of the Chances, and have at last found them."

"How did you find them?"

"It is a very long story, Mary, and someone you know and that you are not
friendly with is mixed up with it. I met him accidentally at Kingston,
where there was a dinner-party and he was among the guests. Mrs. Travers
introduced him to me, and he took me in to dinner; and it was very
painful to me--to both of