. She looked away.

"What is it, Tante?" Karen asked.

Madame von Marwitz had begun to draw deep, slow breaths. Karen knew the
sound; it meant a painful control. "Tante, what is it?" she repeated.

"Nothing. Nothing, my child." Madame von Marwitz laid her arm around
Karen's shoulders and continued to look away from her.

"But it isn't nothing," said Karen, after a little pause. "Something
that I have said troubles or hurts you."

"Is it so? Perhaps you say the truth, my child. Hurts are not new to me.
No, my Karen, no. It is nothing for us to speak of. I understand. But
your husband, Karen, he must have found it thoughtless in me,
indelicate, to force myself in when he had hoped so strongly for another
guest."

A slow flush mounted to Karen's cheek. She kept silence for a moment,
then in a careful voice she said: "No, Tante; I do not believe that."

"No?" said Madame von Marwitz. "No, my Karen?"

"He knew, on the contrary, that I hoped to have you soon--at any time
that you could come," said Karen, in slightly trembling tones.

Madame von Marwitz nodded. "He knew that, as you tell me; and, knowing
it, he asked Tallie; hoping that with her installed--for a long
visit--my stay might be prevented. Do not let us hide from each other,
my Karen. We have hidden too long and it is the beginning of the end if
we may not say to each other what we see."

Sitting with downcast eyes, Karen was silent, struggling perhaps with
new realisations.

Madame von Marwitz bent to kiss her forehead and then, resuming the
tender stroking of her hair, she went on: "Your husband dislikes me. Let
us look the ugly thing full in the face. You know it, and I know it,
and--_parbleu!_--he knows it well. There; the truth is out. Ah, the
brave little heart; it sought to hide its sorrow from me. But Tante is
not so dull a person. The loneliness of heart must cease for you. And
the sorrow, too, may pass away. Be patient, Karen. You will see. He may
come to feel more kindly towards the woman who so loves his wife.
Strange, is it not, and a chastisement for my egotism, if I have still
any of that frothy element lingering in my nature, that I should find,
suddenly, at the end of my life--so near me, bound to me by such
ties--one who is unwilling to trust me, oh, for the least little bit; so
unwilling to accept me at merely my face value. Most people," she added,
"have loved me easily."

Karen sat on in silence. Her guardian knew this apathetic s