; but she was confused,
trying to think swiftly, to adjust her thoughts. They were in Karen's
little room overlooking the trees at the corner of the house. It was
dismantled; a bare dressing-table, the ewer upturned in the basin, the
bed and its piled bedding covered with a sheet. Madame von Marwitz sat
down on the bed and drew Karen beside her.

"But is not that to punish him too much?"

"It is not to punish him. I cannot live with him any longer."

"I see; I see;" said Madame von Marwitz, with a certain briskness, as
though, still, to give herself time to think. "It might have been wiser
to wait--to wait for a little. I would have written to you. We could
have consulted. It is serious, you know, my Karen, very serious, to
leave one's husband. I went away so that this should not come to you."

"I could not wait. I could not stay with him any longer," said Karen
heavily.

"There is more, you mean. You had words? He hates me more than you
thought?"

Karen paused, and then assented: "Yes; more than I thought."

Above the girl's head, which she held pressed down on her shoulder,
Madame von Marwitz pondered for some moments. "Alas!" she then uttered
in a deep voice. And, Karen saying nothing, she repeated on a yet more
melancholy note: "Alas!"

Karen now raised herself from Tante's shoulder; but, at the gesture of
withdrawal, Madame von Marwitz caught her close again and embraced her.
"I feared it," she said. "I saw it. I hoped to hide it by my flight. My
poor child! My beloved Karen!"

They held each other for some silent moments. Then Madame von Marwitz
rose. "You are weary, my Karen; you must rest; is it not so? I will send
Tallie to you. You will see Tallie--she is a perfection of discretion;
you do not shrink from Tallie. And you need tell her nothing; she will
not question you. Between ourselves; is it not so? Yes; that is best.
For the present. I will come again, later--I have guests, a guest, you
see. Rest here, my Karen." She moved towards the door.

Karen looked after her. An intolerable fear pressed on her. She could
not bear, in her physical weakness, to be left alone with it. "Tante!"
she exclaimed.

Madame von Marwitz turned. "My child?"

"Tante--you are glad to have me back?"

Her pride broke in a sob. She hid her face in her hands.

Madame von Marwitz returned to the bed.

"Glad, my child?" she said. "For all the sorrow that it means? and to
know that I am the cause? How can I be glad for