whether you are a burden to me?"

"Only--" said Karen, her voice more noticeably trembling--"only that it
seemed to me that I must be in the way if you could think of Franz as a
husband for me. I do not know why I feel that. But it hurt me so much
that it seemed to me to be true."

"It has always been my joy to care for you," said Madame von Marwitz. "I
have always loved you like my own child. I do not admit that to think of
Franz as a husband for you was to do you a wrong. I would not listen to
an unfitting suitor for my child. It is you who have hurt me--deeply
hurt me--by so misunderstanding me." Sorrow and reproach grew in her
voice.

"Forgive me," said Karen, who still held the hand before her eyes.

Madame von Marwitz drew her hand gently away and raising Karen's head so
that she could look at her, "I forgive you, indeed, Karen," she said.
"How could I not forgive you? But, child, do not hurt me so again. Never
speak of leaving me again. You must never leave me except to go where a
fuller happiness beckons. You do not know how they stabbed--those words
of yours. That you could think them, believe them! No, Karen, it was not
well. Not only are you dear to me for yourself; there is another bond.
You were dear to him. You were beside me in the hour of my supreme
agony. You desecrate our sacred memories when you allow small suspicions
and fears to enter your thoughts of me. So much has failed me in my
life. May I not trust that my child will never fail me?"

Tragic grief gazed from her eyes and Karen's eyes echoed it.

"Forgive me, Tante, I have hurt you. I have been stupid," she spoke
almost dully; but Madame von Marwitz was looking into the eyes, deep
wells of pain and self-reproach.

"Yes, you have hurt me, _ma cherie_," she replied, leaning now her cheek
against Karen's head. "And it is not loving to forget that when a cup of
suffering brims, a drop the more makes it overflow. You are harsh
sometimes, Karen, strangely harsh."

"Forgive me," Karen repeated.

Madame von Marwitz put her arms around her, still leaning her head
against hers. "With all my heart, my child, with all my heart," she
said. "But do not hurt me so again. Do not forget that I live at the
edge of a precipice; an inadvertent footstep, and I crash down to the
bottom, to lie mangled. Ah, my child, may life never tear you, burn you,
freeze you, as it has torn and burned and frozen me. Ah, the memories,
the cruel memories!" Great sighs lift