ing,
as if at visions, in the fire, lifted her arms and bent her head with
almost the passivity of a dead thing. Once or twice she murmured broken
phrases: "My ewe-lamb;--taken;--I am very weary. _Mon Dieu, mon
Dieu_,--and is this, then, the end...."

She rested heavily on Karen's shoulder in rising. "Forgive me," she
said, leaning her head against hers, "forgive me, beloved one. I have
done harm where I meant to make a safer happiness. Forgive me, too, for
my bitter words. I should not have spoken as I did. My child knows that
it is a hot and passionate heart."

Karen, in silence, turned her face to her guardian's breast.

"And do not," said Madame von Marwitz, speaking with infinite
tenderness, while she stroked the bent head, "judge your husband too
hardly because of this. He gives what love he can; as he knows love. It
is as my child said; he does not understand. It is not given to some to
understand. He has lived in a narrow world. Do not judge him hardly,
Karen; it is for the wiser, stronger, more loving soul to lift the
smaller towards the light. He can still give my child happiness. In that
trust I find my strength."

They went down the passage together. Gregory came to the drawing-room
door. He would have spoken, have questioned, but, shrinking from him and
against Karen, as if from an intolerable searing, Madame von Marwitz
hastened past him. He heard the front door open and the last silent
pause of farewell on the threshold.

Louise scuttled by past him to her mistress's vacated rooms. She did not
see him and he heard that she muttered under her breath: "_Ah! par
exemple! C'est trap fort, ma parole d'honneur!_"

As Karen came back from the door he went to meet her.

"Karen," he said, "will you come and talk with me, now?"

She put aside his hand. "I cannot talk. Do not come to me," she said. "I
must think." And going into their room she shut the door.

CHAPTER XXVI

The telephone sounded while Gregory next morning ate his solitary
breakfast, and the voice of Mrs. Forrester, disembodied of all but its
gravity, asked him, if he would, to come and see her immediately.

Gregory asked if Madame von Marwitz were with her. He was not willing,
after the final affront that she had put upon him, to encounter Madame
von Marwitz again in circumstances where he might seem to be justifying
himself. But, with a deeper drop, the disembodied voice informed him
that Madame von Marwitz, ten minutes before,