aedige Frau_; we must not wake her if she sleeps. I will
take you to her as soon as she is awake."

Madame von Marwitz, with her unchanging smile, was pressing him towards
the door of his own room.

"I will wait. I will wait until she wakes, Franz. Your luggage? It is
here? I will help you to pack, my Franz."

She had drawn him into his room, her arm passed into his, and, even
while she spoke, she pointed out the few effects scattered here and
there. And, with his torpid look of a creature hypnotized, Franz obeyed
her, taking from her hands the worn brush, the shaving appliances, the
socks and book and nightshirt.

When all were laid together in his knapsack and he had drawn the straps,
he turned to her, still with the dazzled gaze. "But this may wait," he
said, "until I have said good-bye to Karen."

Madame von Marwitz looked at him with an almost musing sweetness. She
had the aspect of a conjuror who, with a last light puff of breath or
touch of a magic finger, puts forth the final resource of a stupefying
dexterity. So delicately, so softly, with a calm that knew no doubt or
hesitation, she shook her head. "No; no farewells, now, my Franz. That
would not be well. That would agitate her. She could not listen to all
our story. She could not understand. Later, when she is in my arms, at
peace, I will tell her all and that you are gone to wait for us, and
give her your adieu."

He gazed at the conjuror. "But, _gnaedige Frau_, may I not say good-bye
to Karen? Together we could tell her. It will be strange to her to wake
and find that I am gone."

Her arm was passed in his again. She was leading him through the
sitting-room. And she repeated with no change of voice: "No, my Franz. I
know these illnesses. A little agitation is very bad. You will write to
her daily. She shall have your letters, every day. You promise me--but I
need not ask it of our Franz--to write. In three days, or in four, we
will be with you."

She had got him out of his room, out of the sitting-room, into the
passage. The cab still waited, the cabman dozed on his box in the spring
sunlight. Before the landlady Madame von Marwitz embraced Franz and
kissed and blessed him. She kept an arm round him till she had him at
the cab-door. She almost lifted him in.

"You will tell Karen--that you did not find it right--that I should say
good-bye to her," he stammered.

And with a last long pressure of the hand she said: "I will tell her,
Franz. We wi