atter, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott asked, as she was evidently
invited to do.

"Read if you will," said Madame von Marwitz. She held out the letter
which Mrs. Talcott rose to take.

It was from Mrs. Forrester and was full of sympathy for her afflicted
friend, and full of sympathy for foolish, headstrong little Karen. The
mingled sympathies rang strangely. She avowed self-reproach. She was
afraid that she had precipitated the rupture between Karen and her
husband, not quite, perhaps, understanding the facts. She had seen
Gregory, she was very sorry for him. She was, apparently, sorry for
everyone; except of course, Mr. Drew, the villain of the piece; but of
Mr. Drew and of Mercedes's sacred love for him, she made no mention.
Mrs. Forrester was fond, but she was wary. She had received, evidently,
her dim thrust of disillusion. Mercedes had blamed herself and Mrs.
Forrester did not deny that Mercedes must be to blame.

"Yes; she's feeling pretty sick," Mrs. Talcott commented when she had
read. "The trouble is that anybody who knows how much Karen loved you
knows that she wouldn't have made off like that without you'd treated
her ugly. That'll be the trouble with most of your friends, I reckon.
Who's your other letter from?"

Madame von Marwitz roused herself from her state of contemplation. She
opened the second letter saying, tersely: "Scrotton."

"She ain't likely to take sides with Karen," Mrs. Talcott observed,
inserting her hand once more in the stocking she was darning, these
homely occupations having for the last few days been brought into the
music-room, since Mercedes would not be left alone. "She was always just
as jealous of Karen as could be."

She proceeded to darn and Madame von Marwitz to read, and as she read a
dark flush mounted to her face. Clenching her hand on Miss Scrotton's
letter, she brought it down heavily on the back of the chair she sat in.
Then, without speaking, she got up, tossed the letter to Mrs. Talcott,
and began to pace the room, setting the furniture that she encountered
out of her way with vindictive violence.

"My Darling, Darling Mercedes," Miss Scrotton wrote, "This is too
terrible. Shall I come to you at once? I thought this morning after
I had seen Mrs. Forrester and read your heartbreaking letter that I
would start to-day; but let me hear from you, you may be coming up
to town. If you stay in Cornwall, Mercedes, you must not be alone;
you must not