Mrs. Talcott, as she descended the staircase, heard in the little sitting-room a voice, the voice of Mercedes, speaking on and on, in a deep-toned, continuous roll of vehement demonstration, passionate protest, subtle threat and pleading. Gregory's voice she did not hear. No doubt he stood where she had left him, at the other side of the table, confronting his antagonist.

Mrs. Talcott turned the knob of the door and slightly pushed it. A heavy weight at once was flung against it.

"You shall not come in! You shall not! I forbid it! I will not be disturbed!" cried the voice of Mercedes, who must, in the moment, have guessed that she had been foiled.

"Quit that foolishness," said Mrs. Talcott sternly. She leaned against the door and forced it open, and Mercedes, dishevelled, with eyes that seemed to pant on her like eyes from some dangerous jungle, flung herself once more upon the door and stood with her back against it.

"Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott, not looking at her recovered captive, "Karen is upstairs and wants to see you. She doesn't love Franz Lippheim and she isn't going to marry him. She didn't run away with him; she met him when she'd run away from her guardian and he was going to take her to his mother, only she got sick and he had to bring her here. She was told that you wanted to divorce her and wanted to be free. She loves you, Mr. Jardine, and she's waiting up there; only be mighty gentle with her, because she's been brought to death's door by all that she's been through."

"I forbid it! I forbid it!" shrieked Madame von Marwitz from her place before the door, spreading her arms across it. "She is mad! She is delirious! The doctor has said so! I have promised Franz that you shall not come to her unless across my dead body. I have sworn it! I keep my promise to Franz!"

Gregory advanced to the door, eyeing her. "Let me pass," he said. "Let me go to my wife."

"No! no! and no!" screamed the desperate woman. "You shall not! It will kill her! You shall be arrested! You wish to kill a woman who has fled from you! Help! Help!" He had her by the wrists and her teeth seized his hands. She fought him with incredible fury.

"Hold on tight, Mr. Jardine," Mrs. Talcott's voice came to him from below. "There; I've got hold of her ankles. Put her down."

With a loud, clashing wail through clenched and grinding teeth, Madame von Marwitz, like a pine-tree uprooted, was laid upon the floor. Mrs. Talcott knelt at her feet, pinioning them. She looked along the large white form to Gregory at the other end, who was holding down Madame von Marwitz's shoulders. "Go on, Mr. Jardine," she said. "Right up those stairs. She'll calm down now. I've had her like this before."

Gregory rose, yet paused, torn by his longing, yet fearful of leaving the old woman with the demoniac creature. But Madame von Marwitz lay as if in a trance. Her lids were closed. Her breast rose and fell with heavy, regular breaths.

"Go on, Mr. Jardine," said Mrs. Talcott. So he left them there.

He went up the little stairs, dark and warm, and smelling—he was never to forget the smell—of apples and dust, and entered a small, light room where a window made a square of blue and green. Beyond it in a narrow bed lay Karen. She did not move or speak; her eyes were fixed on his; she did not smile. And as he looked at her Mrs. Talcott's words flashed in his mind: "Karen's that kind: rocky: she don't change."

But she had changed. She was his as she had never been, never could have been, if the sinister presence lying there downstairs had not finally revealed itself. He knelt beside her and she was in his arms and his head was laid in the old sacred way beside his darling's head. They did not seem to speak to each other for a long time nor did they look into each other's eyes. He held her hand and looked at that, and sometimes kissed it gently. But after words had come and their eyes had dared to meet in joy, Karen said to him: "And I must tell you of Franz, Gregory, dear Franz. He is suffering, I know. He, too, was lied to, and he was sent away without seeing me again. We will write to Franz at once. And you will care for my Franz, Gregory?"

"Yes; I will care for your Franz; bless your Franz," said Gregory, with tears, his lips on her hand.

"He came to me like an angel that morning," Karen said in her breath of voice; "and he has been like a beautiful mother to me; he has taken care of me like a mother. It was on the headland over Falmouth—that he came. Oh, Gregory," she turned her face to her husband's breast, "the birds were beginning to sing and I thought that I should never see you again."