Now I'll write to Mr. Jardine."

Madame von Marwitz's eyes were still fixed sharply on her and a sudden
suspicion leapt to them. "Here then!" she exclaimed. "You write in my
presence as I have done in yours. And we go to the village together that
I may see you post the self-same letter. I have had enough of
betrayals!"

Mrs. Talcott allowed a grim smile to touch her lips. "My, but you're
silly, Mercedes," she said. "Get up, then, and let me sit there. I'd
just as leave I'm sure. You know I'm determined that Karen shall go back
to her husband and that I'm going to do all I can so as she shall. So
there's nothing I want to hide."

She took up the pen and Madame von Marwitz leaned over her shoulder and
read as she wrote:

"Dear Mr. Jardine,--Mercedes and Karen have had a disagreement and
Karen took it very hard and has made off, we don't know where. Go
round to Mrs. Forrester and see what Mercedes has got to say about
it. Karen will tell you her side when you see her. She feels very
bad about you yet; and thinks things are over between you; but you
hang on, Mr. Jardine, and it'll all come right. You'd better find
out whether Karen's called at the Lippheims' and get a detective
and try and trace her out. If she's with them in Germany I advise
you to go right over and see her.--Yours sincerely,

"Hannah Talcott."

Mrs. Talcott, as she finished, heard that the breathing of Mercedes,
close upon her, had become heavier. She did not look at her. She knew
what Mercedes was feeling, and dreading; and that Mercedes was helpless.

"There's no reason under the sun why Handcock shouldn't take these
letters as usual," she remarked; "but if you're set on it that you're
being betrayed, put on your shoes and dress and we'll walk down and mail
them together."

CHAPTER XXXIX

It was on the second morning after this that the letters were brought in
to Madame von Marwitz while she and Mrs. Talcott sat in the music-room
together.

The two days had told upon them both. The face of Mercedes was like a
beautiful fruit, rain-sodden and gnawed at the heart by a worm. Mrs.
Talcott's was more bleached, more desolate, more austere.

The one letter that Handcock brought to Mrs. Talcott was from Gregory
Jardine:

"Dear Mrs. Talcott," it said, "Thank you for your kind note. I am
very unhappy and only a little less unhappy than when Karen left
me. One cause of our est