all
not come to her unless across my dead body. I have sworn it! I keep my
promise to Franz!"

Gregory advanced to the door, eyeing her. "Let me pass," he said. "Let
me go to my wife."

"No! no! and no!" screamed the desperate woman. "You shall not! It will
kill her! You shall be arrested! You wish to kill a woman who has fled
from you! Help! Help!" He had her by the wrists and her teeth seized his
hands. She fought him with incredible fury.

"Hold on tight, Mr. Jardine," Mrs. Talcott's voice came to him from
below. "There; I've got hold of her ankles. Put her down."

With a loud, clashing wail through clenched and grinding teeth, Madame
von Marwitz, like a pine-tree uprooted, was laid upon the floor. Mrs.
Talcott knelt at her feet, pinioning them. She looked along the large
white form to Gregory at the other end, who was holding down Madame von
Marwitz's shoulders. "Go on, Mr. Jardine," she said. "Right up those
stairs. She'll calm down now. I've had her like this before."

Gregory rose, yet paused, torn by his longing, yet fearful of leaving
the old woman with the demoniac creature. But Madame von Marwitz lay as
if in a trance. Her lids were closed. Her breast rose and fell with
heavy, regular breaths.

"Go on, Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott. So he left them there.

He went up the little stairs, dark and warm, and smelling--he was never
to forget the smell--of apples and dust, and entered a small, light room
where a window made a square of blue and green. Beyond it in a narrow
bed lay Karen. She did not move or speak; her eyes were fixed on his;
she did not smile. And as he looked at her Mrs. Talcott's words flashed
in his mind: "Karen's that kind: rocky: she don't change."

But she had changed. She was his as she had never been, never could have
been, if the sinister presence lying there downstairs had not finally
revealed itself. He knelt beside her and she was in his arms and his
head was laid in the old sacred way beside his darling's head. They did
not seem to speak to each other for a long time nor did they look into
each other's eyes. He held her hand and looked at that, and sometimes
kissed it gently. But after words had come and their eyes had dared to
meet in joy, Karen said to him: "And I must tell you of Franz, Gregory,
dear Franz. He is suffering, I know. He, too, was lied to, and he was
sent away without seeing me again. We will write to Franz at once. And
you will care for my Franz, Gregory?"