She pushed back her chair and clutching the edge of the desk with both hands, gave a low cry.

Mrs. Talcott looked at her, inquiring, but unmoved.

"Oh--it is easy for you--standing there--watching my humiliation--making your terms!" Madame von Marwitz exclaimed in bitter, trembling tones.

"You see me in the dust,--and it is you who strike me there. I am to drag myself--with precautions--apologies--to that child's feet--that waif!--that b.a.s.t.a.r.d!--that thing I picked up and made! I am to be glad because I may hope to move her to mercy! Ah!--it is too much! too much!

I curse the day that I saw her! I had a presentiment--I remember it now--as I saw her standing there in the forest with her foolish face. I felt in my inmost soul that she was to bring me sorrow. She takes him from me! She puts me to shame before the world! And I am to implore her to take pity on me!"

She had extended her clenched hand in speaking and now struck it violently on the desk. The silver blotter, the candlesticks, the pen-tray and ink-stand leaped in their places and the ink, splashing up, spattered her white silk robe.

"There now," said Mrs. Talcott, eyeing her impa.s.sively, "you've gone and spoiled your nice dress."

"d.a.m.n the dress!" said Madame von Marwitz. Leaning her elbows on the desk and her face on her hands, she wept; the tears trickled between her fingers.

But in a very little while the storm pa.s.sed. She straightened herself, found her lace-edged handkerchief and dried her eyes and cheeks; then, taking a long breath, she drew forward a pad of paper.

"I am a fool, am I not, Tallie," she remarked. "And you are wise; a traitor, yet wise. I will do as you say. Wait there and you shall see."

Mrs. Talcott now subsided heavily into a chair and for some fifteen minutes there was no sound but the scratching of Madame von Marwitz's pen and the deep sighs that from time to time she heaved.

Then: "So: will that do?" she asked, leaning back with the deepest of the sighs and handing the pages to Mrs. Talcott.

Her dark, cold eyes, all clouded with weeping, had a singularly child-like expression as she thus pa.s.sed on her letter for inspection.

And--as when she had stretched out her legs for Mrs. Talcott to put on her stockings--one saw beyond the instinctively confiding gesture a long series of scenes reaching back to childhood, scenes where, in crises, her own craft and violence and unscrupulous resource having undone her, she had fallen back in fundamental dependence on the one stable and inalienable figure in her life.

Mrs. Talcott read:

"My Friend--Dearest and best Beloved,--I am in the straits of a terrible grief.--I am blind with weeping, dazed from a sleepless night and a day of anguish.--My child, my Karen, is gone and, oh my friend, I am in part to blame.--I am hot of blood, quick of tongue, as you know, and you know that Karen is haughty, resentful, unwilling to brook reproof even from me. But I do not attempt to exonerate myself. I will open my heart to you and my friend will read aright and interpret the broken words. You know that I cared for Claude Drew; you guessed perhaps how strong was the hold upon me of the frail, ambiguous, yet so intelligent modern spirit. It was to feel the Spring blossom once more on my frosty branches when this young life fell at my knees and seemed to find in me its source and goal. Mine was a sacred love and pain mingled with my maternal tenderness when he revealed himself to me as seeking from me the lesser things of love, the things I could not give, that elemental soil of sense and pa.s.sion without which a man's devotion so strangely withers,--I could give him water from the wells and light from the air; I could not give him earth. My friend, he was here when Karen came, and, already I had seen it, his love was pa.s.sing from me. Her youth, her guilelessness, her courage and the loyalty of her return to me, aroused his curiosity, his indolent and--you will remember--his unsatisfied, pa.s.sion. I saw at once, and I saw danger. I knew him to be a man believing in neither good nor evil, seeking only beauty and the satisfaction of desire. Not once--but twice, thrice, did I warn Karen, and she resented my warnings. She is a creature profoundly pure and profoundly simple and her stubborn spirit rests in security upon its own a.s.surances.

She resented my warnings and she repulsed my attempts to lead and guard her. Another difference had also come between us. I hoped to effect a reconciliation between her and her husband; I suggested to Karen that I should write to you and offer myself as an intermediary; I could not bear to see her young life ruined for my sake. Karen was not kind to me; the thought of her husband is intolerable to her and she turned upon me with bitterness. I was hurt and I told her so. She brought me to tears. My friend, it was late on the night of that day--the night before last--that I found her with Claude Drew in the garden; and found her in his arms. Do not misunderstand; she had not returned his love; she repulsed him as I came upon them; but I, in my consternation, my anger, my dismay, s.n.a.t.c.hed her from him and spoke to them both with pa.s.sionate reproof. I sent Karen to the house and remained behind to deal with the creature who had so betrayed my trust. He is now my avowed enemy. So be it. I do not see him again.

"At dawn, after a sleepless night, I went to Karen's room to take her in my arms and to ask her pardon for my harsh words. She was gone. Gone, my friend. Tallie tells me that she believed me to have said that unless she could obey me I must forbid her to remain under my roof. These were not my words; but she had misunderstood and had fiercely resented my displeasure. She told Tallie that she would go to the Lippheims,--for them, as I have told you, she has a deep affection. Tallie urged upon her that she should communicate with her husband, let him know what had happened, return to him--even if it were to blacken me in his eyes--and would to G.o.d that it had been so!--But she repulsed the suggestion with bitterness. It must also have filled her with terror lest we should ourselves make some further attempt to bring about a reconciliation; for it was in the night, and immediately after her talk with Tallie, that she went, although she and Tallie had arranged that she was to go to the Lippheims next day.

"We have wired to the Lippheims and find that they have left England. And we have wired to Mr. Jardine, and she is not with him.

She may be on her way to Germany; she may be concealed in the country near here; she may be in London. Unless we have news of her to-morrow I send for a detective. Oh, to hold her in my arms! I am crushed to the earth with sorrow and remorse. Show this letter to her husband. I have no thought of pride.

"Your devoted and unhappy Mercedes."

Mrs. Talcott read and remained for some moments reflecting after she had read. "Well, I suppose that's got to do," she commented, "though I don't call it a satisfactory letter. You've fixed it up real smart, but it's a long way off the truth."

Madame von Marwitz, while Mrs. Talcott read, had been putting back the disordered strands of her hair, adjusting her laces, and dabbing vaguely with her handkerchief at the splashes of ink that disfigured the front of her dress--thereby ruining the handkerchief; she looked up sharply now.

"I deny that it is a long way off the truth."

"A long way off," Mrs. Talcott repeated colourlessly; "but I guess it'll have to do. I'm willing you should make the best story out for yourself you can to your friends, so long as Karen knows the truth and so long as you don't spread scandal about her. Now I'll write to Mr. Jardine."

Madame von Marwitz's eyes were still fixed sharply on her and a sudden suspicion leapt to them. "Here then!" she exclaimed. "You write in my presence as I have done in yours. And we go to the village together that I may see you post the self-same letter. I have had enough of betrayals!"

Mrs. Talcott allowed a grim smile to touch her lips. "My, but you're silly, Mercedes," she said. "Get up, then, and let me sit there. I'd just as leave I'm sure. You know I'm determined that Karen shall go back to her husband and that I'm going to do all I can so as she shall. So there's nothing I want to hide."

She took up the pen and Madame von Marwitz leaned over her shoulder and read as she wrote:

"Dear Mr. Jardine,--Mercedes and Karen have had a disagreement and Karen took it very hard and has made off, we don't know where. Go round to Mrs. Forrester and see what Mercedes has got to say about it. Karen will tell you her side when you see her. She feels very bad about you yet; and thinks things are over between you; but you hang on, Mr. Jardine, and it'll all come right. You'd better find out whether Karen's called at the Lippheims' and get a detective and try and trace her out. If she's with them in Germany I advise you to go right over and see her.--Yours sincerely,

"Hannah Talcott."

Mrs. Talcott, as she finished, heard that the breathing of Mercedes, close upon her, had become heavier. She did not look at her. She knew what Mercedes was feeling, and dreading; and that Mercedes was helpless.

"There's no reason under the sun why Handc.o.c.k shouldn't take these letters as usual," she remarked; "but if you're set on it that you're being betrayed, put on your shoes and dress and we'll walk down and mail them together."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

It was on the second morning after this that the letters were brought in to Madame von Marwitz while she and Mrs. Talcott sat in the music-room together.

The two days had told upon them both. The face of Mercedes was like a beautiful fruit, rain-sodden and gnawed at the heart by a worm. Mrs.

Talcott's was more bleached, more desolate, more austere.

The one letter that Handc.o.c.k brought to Mrs. Talcott was from Gregory Jardine:

"Dear Mrs. Talcott," it said, "Thank you for your kind note. I am very unhappy and only a little less unhappy than when Karen left me. One cause of our estrangement is, perhaps, removed; but the fact borne in upon me at the time of that parting was that, while she was everything in life to me, she hardly knew the meaning of the words love and marriage. I need not tell you that I will do all in my power to induce her to return to me, and all in my power to win her heart. It was useless to make any attempt at reconciliation while her guardian stood between us. I cannot pretend that I feel more kindly towards Madame von Marwitz now; rather the reverse. It is plain to me that she has treated Karen shamefully. You must forgive me for my frankness.--Sincerely yours,

"Gregory Jardine."

Mrs. Talcott when she looked up from this letter saw that Mercedes was absorbed in hers. Her expression had stiffened as she read, and when she had finished the hand holding it dropped to her side. She sat looking down in a dark contemplation.

Mrs. Talcott asked no question. United in the practical exigencies of their search for Karen, united in their indestructible relation of respective dependence and stability, which the last catastrophe had hardly touched--for Mercedes had accepted her betrayal with a singular pa.s.sivity, as if it had been a force of nature that had overtaken her--there was yet a whole new region of distrust between them. She and Mercedes, as Mrs. Talcott cheerlessly imaged it, were like a constable and his captive adrift, by a curious turn of fortune, on the waters of a sudden inundation. Together they baled out water and worked at the oar, but both were aware that when the present peril was past a sentence had still to be carried out on one of them. Mercedes could not evade her punishment. If Karen were found Gregory Jardine must come to know that her guardian had, literally, driven her from her home. In that case it rested with Gregory's sense of mercy whether Mercedes should be exposed to the world or not. And after reading Gregory's letter Mrs. Talcott reflected that there was not much to hope of mercy from him. So she showed a tactful consideration of her companion's state of nerves by pressing her no further than was necessary.

On this occasion, however, there was no need for pressure; Mercedes, in her dismal plight, turned to her with the latest development of it.

"Ah," she said, while she still continued to gaze down fixedly, "this it is to have true friends. This is human loyalty. It is well."

"What's the matter, Mercedes?" Mrs. Talcott asked, as she was evidently invited to do.

"Read if you will," said Madame von Marwitz. She held out the letter which Mrs. Talcott rose to take.

It was from Mrs. Forrester and was full of sympathy for her afflicted friend, and full of sympathy for foolish, headstrong little Karen. The mingled sympathies rang strangely. She avowed self-reproach. She was afraid that she had precipitated the rupture between Karen and her husband, not quite, perhaps, understanding the facts. She had seen Gregory, she was very sorry for him. She was, apparently, sorry for everyone; except of course, Mr. Drew, the villain of the piece; but of Mr. Drew and of Mercedes's sacred love for him, she made no mention.

Mrs. Forrester was fond, but she was wary. She had received, evidently, her dim thrust of disillusion. Mercedes had blamed herself and Mrs.

Forrester did not deny that Mercedes must be to blame.

"Yes; she's feeling pretty sick," Mrs. Talcott commented when she had read. "The trouble is that anybody who knows how much Karen loved you knows that she wouldn't have made off like that without you'd treated her ugly. That'll be the trouble with most of your friends, I reckon.

Who's your other letter from?"

Madame von Marwitz roused herself from her state of contemplation. She opened the second letter saying, tersely: "Scrotton."

"She ain't likely to take sides with Karen," Mrs. Talcott observed, inserting her hand once more in the stocking she was darning, these homely occupations having for the last few days been brought into the music-room, since Mercedes would not be left alone. "She was always just as jealous of Karen as could be."

She proceeded to darn and Madame von Marwitz to read, and as she read a dark flush mounted to her face. Clenching her hand on Miss Scrotton's letter, she brought it down heavily on the back of the chair she sat in.