o for good. If you want me to go, too, I will, but it's
only fair to tell you that I never felt much sorrier for you than I do
at this minute."

"There have been tragedies in my life," Madame von Marwitz went on in
the low, dulled voice. "I have been a passion-tossed woman. Yes, I have
not been guiltless. But how could you cut out my heart with all its
scars and show it to my child?"

"It was right to do it, Mercedes, so as you shouldn't ruin her life.
She's not your child, and you've shown her she's not. A mother don't
behave so to her child, however off her head she goes."

"I was mad last night." The tears ran slowly down Madame von Marwitz's
cheeks. "I can tell that to Karen. I can explain. I can throw myself on
her mercy. I loved him and my heart was broken. One is not responsible.
It is the animal, wounded to death, that shrieks and tears at the spear
it feels entering its flesh."

"I'm awful sorry for you, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott.

And now, hiding her face in her hands and leaning back in her cushions,
Madame von Marwitz began to weep with the soft reiterated sobbing of a
miserable child. "I have no one left. I am alone," she sobbed. "Even you
have turned against me."

"No, I haven't turned against you," said Mrs. Talcott. "I'm here." And
presently, while Mercedes wept, Mrs. Talcott took her hand and held it.

They reached Helston and climbed the steep, stony road to the station.
There was no sign of Karen. Mrs. Talcott got out and made inquiries. She
might have gone to London by the train that left at dawn; but no one had
noticed such a young lady. Mrs. Talcott came back to the car with her
fruitless story.

Mercedes, by this time, had dried her eyes and was regaining,
apparently, her more normal energies. "Not here? Not seen? Not heard
of?" she repeated. "But where is she then?"

Mrs. Talcott stood at the door of the car and looked at her charge.
"Well, I'm afraid she made off in the night, straight away, after I'd
talked to her."

"Made off in the night?" A dark colour suddenly suffused Madame von
Marwitz's face.

"Yes, that's it, I reckon. I must have said something to scare her about
her going back to her husband. Perhaps she thought I'd bring him down
without her knowing, and perhaps she wasn't far wrong. I'm afraid I've
played the fool. She thought I'd round on her in some way and so she
just lit out."

Madame von Marwitz stared at her. The expression of her face had
entirely altered;