Karen, is more fitted
than you to make him understand what our wonderful Tante really is.
There is the trouble, Karen," said Mrs. Forrester, finding now the
original clue with which she had started on her expedition; "he
shouldn't have been able, living with you, seeing your devotion, seeing
from your life, as you must have told him of it, what it was founded on,
he shouldn't have been able to form such a monstrous conception of our
great, dear one. You have been in fault there, my dear, you see it now,
I am sure. At the first hint you should have made things clear to him. I
know that it is hard for a young wife to oppose the man she loves; but
love mustn't make us cowardly," Mrs. Forrester murmured on more
cheerfully as they moved down the passage, "and Gregory will only love
you more wisely and deeply if he is made to recognize, once for all,
that you will not sacrifice your guardian to please him."

They were now at the door and Karen had not said a word.

"Well, good-bye, my dear," said Mrs. Forrester. Oddly she did not feel
able to urge more strongly upon Karen that she should not sacrifice her
guardian to her husband. "I hope I've made things clearer by coming. It
was better that you should, realize just what your guardian's friends
felt--and would feel--about it, wasn't it?" Karen still made no reply
and on the threshold Mrs. Forrester paused to add, with some urgency:
"It was right, you see that, don't you, Karen, that you should know what
Gregory is really feeling?"

"Yes," Karen now assented. "It is better that I should know that."

CHAPTER XXVIII

Gregory when he came in that evening thought at first, with a pang of
fear, that Karen had gone out. It was time for dressing and she was not
in their room. In the drawing-room it was dark; he stood in the doorway
for a moment and looked about it, sad and tired and troubled, wondering
if Karen had gone to Mrs. Forrester's, wondering whether, in her grave
displeasure with him, she had even followed her guardian. And then, from
beside him, came her voice. "I am here, Gregory. I have been waiting for
you."

His relief was so intense that, turning up the lights, seeing her
sitting there on a little sofa near the door, he bent involuntarily over
her to kiss her.

But her hand put him away.

"No; I must speak to you," she said.

Gregory straightened himself, compressing his lips.

Karen had evidently not thought of changing. She wore her dark-blue sil