alcott;
you could not believe that. Why should I love dear Franz?"

"Then it's only so as to set your husband free that you're marrying
Franz?" Mrs. Talcott went on in the same even voice.

"But no, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, "I am not going to marry Franz." And
now she lifted her head and looked at Mrs. Talcott. "Why do you ask me
that? Who has told you that I am to marry Franz?"

Mrs. Talcott, keeping an arm around her, laid her back on the pillow.

"But, Karen, if you run off like that with Franz and come here and stay
as his wife," she said, "and get your husband to divorce you by acting
so, it's natural that people should think that you're going to marry the
young man, ain't it?"

A burning red had mounted to Karen's wasted cheeks. Her sunken eyes
dwelt on Mrs. Talcott with a sort of horror. "It is true," she said. "He
may think that; he must think that; because unless he does he cannot
divorce me and set himself free, and he must be free, Mrs. Talcott; he
has said that he wishes to be free. But I did not run away with Franz. I
met him, on the headland, that morning, and he was to take me to his
mother, and I was so ill that he brought me here. That was all."

Mrs. Talcott smoothed back her hair. "Take it easy, honey," she said.
"There's nothing to worry over one mite. And now I've asked my questions
and had my answers, and I've got something to tell. Karen, child, it's
all been a pack of lies that Mercedes has told so as to get hold of you,
and so as he shouldn't--so as your husband shouldn't, Karen. Listen,
honey: your husband loves you just for all he's worth. I've seen him. I
went up to him. And he told me how you were all the world to him, and
how, if only you didn't love this young man and didn't want to be free,
he'd do anything to get you back, and how if you'd done the wicked thing
he'd been told and then gotten sorry, he'd want you back just the same
because you were his dear wife, and the one woman he loved. But he
couldn't force himself on you if you loved someone else and hated him.
So I just told him that I didn't believe you loved Franz; and I got him
to hope it, too, and we came down together, Karen, and Mercedes is like
a lion at bay downstairs, and she's in front of that door that leads up
here and swears it'll kill you to see us; and I'd seen the ladder
leaning on the wall and I just nipped out while she was talking, and
brought it round to what I calculated would be your window and climbed