s that you
say, and so can you--and a good home and a nice husband who won't treat
you bad in any way. That's better than batting about the world all by
yourself, Karen; you take my word for it. And you can take my word for
it, too, that if you behave sensible and do as I say, you'll find out
that all this is just a miserable mistake and that he loves you just as
much as ever. Now, see here," Mrs. Talcott, also, had risen, and stood
in her habitual attitude, resting heavily on one hip, "you're not fit to
talk and I'm not going to worry you any more. You go to sleep and we'll
see about what to do to-morrow. You go right to sleep, Karen," she
patted the girl's shoulder.

The panic was deepening in Karen. She saw guile on Mrs. Talcott's
storm-beaten and immutable face; and she heard specious reassurance in
her voice. Mrs. Talcott was dangerous. She had set her heart on this
last desire of her passionless, impersonal life and had determined that
she and Gregory should come together again. It was this desire that had
unsealed her lips: she would never relinquish, it. She might write to
Gregory; she might appeal to him and put before him the desperate plight
in which his wife was placed. And he might come. What were a wife's
powers if she was homeless and penniless, and a husband claimed her?
Karen did not know; but panic breathed upon her, and she felt that she
must fly. She, too, could use guile. "Yes," she said. "I will go to
sleep. And to-morrow we will talk. But what you hope cannot be.
Good-night, Mrs. Talcott."

"Good-night, child," said Mrs. Talcott.

They had joined hands and the strangeness of this farewell, the
knowledge that she might never see Mrs. Talcott again, and that she was
leaving her to a life empty of all that she had believed it to contain,
rose up in Karen so strongly that it blotted out for a moment her own
terror.

"You have been so good to me," she said, in a trembling voice. "Never
shall I forget what you have done for me, Mrs. Talcott. May I kiss you
good-night?"

They had never kissed.

Mrs. Talcott's eyes blinked rapidly, and a curious contortion puckered
her mouth and chin. Karen thought that she was going to cry and her own
eyes filled with tears.

But Mrs. Talcott in another moment had mastered her emotion, or, more
probably, it could find no outlet. The silent, stoic years had sealed
the fount of weeping. Only that dry contortion of her face spoke of her
deep feeling. Karen put her