eping his hands in hers, and she
still held them as they sat down at the centre table in the little room,
he on one side, she on the other, she leaning to him across it; and she
read in his face his deep discomfort.

"But you see, _gnaedige Frau_," Franz again took up his theme; "she
believes that you wish to send her back to him; she has said it; she
could not trust you. And so she fled from you. And I have promised to
take care of her. I am to take her to my mother in Germany as soon as
she can travel. We were on our way to Southampton and would have been,
days since, with the Muetterchen, if in the train Karen had not become so
ill--so very ill. It was a fever that grew on her, and delirium. I did
not know what was best to do. And I remembered this little inn where the
Muetterchen and we four stayed some years ago, when we came first to
England. The landlady was very good; and so I thought of her and brought
Karen here. But when she is better I must take her to Germany, _gnaedige
Frau_. I have promised it."

While Franz thus spoke a new steadiness had come to Madame von Marwitz's
eyes. They dilated singularly, and with them her nostrils, as though she
drew a deep new breath of realisation. It was as if Franz had let down a
barrier; pointed out a way. There was no confession to be made to Franz.
Karen had spared her.

She looked at him, looked and looked, and she shook her head with
infinite gentleness. "But Franz," she said, "I do not wish her to go
back to her husband. I was in fault, yes, grave fault, to urge it upon
her; but Karen's terror was her mistake, her delirium. It was for my
sake that she had left him, Franz, because to me he had shown insolence
and insult;--for your sake, too, Franz, for he tried to part her from
all her friends and of you he spoke with an unworthy jealousy. But
though my heart bled that Karen should be tied to such a man, I knew him
to be not a bad man; hard, narrow, but in his narrowness upright, and
fond, I truly believed it, of his wife. And I could not let her break
her marriage--do you not see, Franz,--if it were for my sake. I could
not see her young life ruined in its dawn. I wished to write to my good
friend Mrs. Forrester--who is also Karen's friend, and his, and I
offered myself as intermediary, as intercessor from him to Karen, if
need be. Was it so black, my fault? For it was this that Karen resented
so cruelly, Franz. Our Karen can be harsh and quick, you know that,
Fran