t herself free. Karen
has confided in her; it was true. And it's true, isn't it, that Karen
was in terror of falling into my hands. You can't deny this, can you?
Why should I torture Karen and myself by seeing her?" said Gregory. He
had averted his eyes as he spoke.

"But do you want her back, Mr. Jardine?" Mrs. Talcott had faced his
catalogue of evidence immovably.

"Not if she loves this man," said Gregory. "And that's the final fact. I
know Karen; she couldn't have done this unless she loved him. The
provocation wasn't extreme enough otherwise. She wouldn't, from sheer
generosity, disgrace herself to free me, especially since she knew that
I considered that that would be to disgrace me, too. No; her guardian's
story has all the marks of truth on it. She loves the man and she had
planned to meet him. And all I've got to do now is to see that she is
free to marry him as soon as possible." He got up as he spoke and walked
up and down the room.

Mrs. Talcott's eye followed him and his despair seemed a fuel to her
faith. "Mr. Jardine," she said, after a moment of silence, "I'll stake
my life on it you're wrong. I know Karen better than you do; I guess
women understand each other better than a man ever understands them. The
bed-rock fact about a woman is that she'll hide the thing she feels most
and she'll say what she hopes ain't true so as to give the man a chance
for convincing her it ain't true. And the blamed foolishness of the man
is that he never does. He just goes off, sick and mournful, and leaves
her to fight it out the best she can. Karen don't love Franz Lippheim,
Mr. Jardine; nothing'll make me believe she loves him. And nothing'll
make me believe but what you could have got her to stay that time she
left you if you'd understood women better. She loves you, Mr. Jardine,
though she mayn't know it, and it's on the cards she knows it so well
that she's dead scared of showing it. Because Karen's a wife through and
through; can't you see it in her face? You're youngish yet, and a man,
so I don't feel as angry with you as you deserve, perhaps, for not
understanding better and for letting Karen get it into her head you
didn't love her any more; for that's what she believes, Mr. Jardine. And
what I'm as sure of as that my name's Hannah Talcott is that she'll
never get over you. She's that kind of woman; a rare kind; rocky; she
don't change. And if she's gone and done this thing, like it appears she
has, it isn't in