l face on the pillow was unchanged, its eyes still calmly
closed. She could not attempt to take the hand of this alien Karen, nor
even to touch her sleeve. She went back to her chair.

"Karen," she said, "if you cannot love me, you can still think of me as
your friend and counsellor. I am glad to hear you speak of our Franz.
That lights my way. I have had much talk with our good and faithful
Franz. Together we have faced all that there is of difficult and sad to
face. My child shall be spared all that could trouble her. Franz and I
are beside you through it all. Your husband, Karen, is to divorce you
because of Franz. You are to be set free, my child."

A strange thing happened then. If Madame von Marwitz had plunged a
dagger into Karen's heart, the change that transformed her deathly face
could hardly have been more violent. It was as if all the amazed and
desperate life fled to her eyes and lips and cheeks. Colour flooded her.
Her eyes opened and shone. Her lips parted, trembled, uttered a loud
cry. She turned her head and looked at her guardian. Her dream was with
her. What was that loud cry for help, hers or his?

Madame von Marwitz looked back and her face, too, was changed.
Realizations, till then evaded, flashed over it as though from Karen's
it caught the bright up-flaming of the truth. Fear followed, darkening
it. Karen's truth threatened the whole fabric of the plan, threatened
her life in all that it held of value. Resentment for a moment convulsed
it. Then, with a steady mastery, yet the glance, sunken, sickened, of
one who holds off disabling pity while he presses out a fluttering life
beneath his hand, she said: "Yes, my child. Your wild adventure is
known. You have been here for days and nights with this young man who
loves you and he has given you his name. Your husband seizes the
opportunity to free himself. Can you not rejoice, Karen, that it is to
set you free also? It is of that only that I have thought. I have
rejoiced for you. And I have told Franz that I will stand by you and by
him so that no breath of shame or difficulty shall touch you. In me you
have the staunchest friend."

Madame von Marwitz, while she addressed these remarks to the strange,
vivid face that stared at her with wide and shining eyes, was aware of a
sense of nausea and giddiness so acute that she feared she might succumb
to sickness. She put her hand before her eyes, reflecting that she must
have some food if she were to thi