or two that'll make them sit up."

"But wait first, you must be so tired. Do have some tea first," Gregory
urged, as the indomitable old woman made her way towards the door. "And
what can you say to them, after all? We are sure of nothing."

Mrs. Talcott paused with her hand on the door knob; "I'm sure of one
thing, and they've got to hear it; and that is that Mercedes treated
Karen so bad she had to go. Mercedes isn't going to get let off that. I
told her so. I told her I'd come right up and tell her friends about her
if she stole a march on me, and that's what she's done. Yes," said Mrs.
Talcott, opening the door, "I've cut loose from my moorings and
Mercedes's friends have got to hear the truth of that story and I'm
going to see that they do right away. Good-bye, Mr. Jardine. I don't
want any tea; I'll be back in time for dinner, I guess."

CHAPTER XLVI

Peace had descended upon the little room where Karen lay, cold, still
peace. There were no longer any tears or clamour, no appeals and
agonies. Tante was often with her; but she seldom spoke now and Karen
had ceased to feel more than a dull discomfort when she came into the
room.

Tante smiled at her with the soft, unmurmuring patience of her exile,
she tended her carefully, she told her that in a day or two, at
furthest, they would be out at sea in the most beautiful of yachts. "All
has been chosen for my child," she said. "The nurse meets us at
Southampton and we wing our way straight to Sicily."

Karen was willing that anything should be done with her except the one
thing. It had surprised her to find how much it meant to Tante that she
should consent to go back to her. It had not been difficult to consent,
when she understood that that was all that Tante wanted and why she
wanted it so much. It was the easier since in her heart she believed
that she was dying.

All these days it had been like holding her way through a whirlpool. The
foam and uproar of the water had beat upon her fragile bark of life, had
twisted it and turned it again and again to the one goal where she would
not be. Tante had been the torrent, at once stealthy and impetuous, and
the goal where she had wished to drive her had been marriage to Franz.
Karen had known no fear of yielding, it would have been impossible to
her to yield; yet she had thought sometimes that the bark would crack
under the onslaught of the torrent and she be dragged down finally to
unconsciousness.

All t