. Do not tell me that you hate me so much
that you will not do this for me."

Her voice was weighted with its longing, its humility, its tenderness.
The sound of it seemed to beat its way to Karen through mists that lay
about her as Tante's cries and tears had not done. A sharper thrust of
pity pierced her. "I do not hate you," she said. "You must not think
that. I understand and I am very sorry. But I do not love you. I shall
not love you again. And how could I come with you? You said--what did
you say that night?" She put her hand before her eyes in the effort of
memory. "That I was ungrateful;--that you fed and clothed me;--that I
took all and gave nothing. And other, worse things; you said them to me.
How can that be again? How could I come with a person who said those
things to me?"

"Oh--but--my child--" Madame von Marwitz's voice trembled in its hope and
fear, though she restrained herself from rising and bending to the girl:
"did I not make you believe me when I told you that I was mad? Do you
not know that the vile words were the weapons I took up against you in
my madness? That you gave nothing, Karen? When you are my only stay in
life, the only thing near me in the world--you and Tallie--the thing
that I have thought of as mine--as if you were my child. And if you came
to me now you would give still more. If it is known that you will not
return--that you will not forgive me and come with me--I am disgraced,
my child. All the world will believe that I have been cruel to you. All
the world will believe that you hate me and that hatred is all that I
have deserved from you."

Karen again had put her hand to her head. "What do you mean?" she
questioned faintly. "Will it help you if I come with you?"

Madame von Marwitz steadied her voice that now shook with rising sobs.
"If you will not come I am ruined."

"You ask to have me to come--though I do not love you?"

"I ask you to come--on any terms, my Karen. And because I love you;
because you will always be the thing dearest in the world to me."

"I could go to Frau Lippheim, if you would help to send me to her," said
Karen, still holding her hand to her head; "I could, I am sure, explain
to her and to Franz so that they would not blame me. But people must not
think that I hate you."

"No; no?" Madame von Marwitz hardly breathed.

"They must not think that; for it is not true. I do not love you, but I
have no hatred for you," said Karen.

"You will come