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<h2>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> Mrs. Talcott went early to Madame von Marwitz's room next morning, as soon, in fact, as she had seen her breakfast-tray carried away. She had shown Mercedes her telegrams the evening before, and Mercedes, lying on her bed where she had passed the day in heavy slumbers, had muttered, "Let me sleep. The post is gone. We can do nothing more till to-morrow." Like a wounded creature she was regaining strength and wholeness in oblivion. When Mrs. Talcott had gone softly into her room at bedtime, she had found her soundly sleeping. But the fumes and torpors of grief and pain were this morning dispersed. Mercedes sat at the desk in her bedroom attired in a robe-de-chambre, and rapidly and feverishly wrote. "I'm glad to see you're feeling better, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, closing the door and coming to her side. "We've got a lot to talk over this morning. I guess we'll have to send for those detectives. What are you writing there?" Madame von Marwitz, whose face had the sodden, slumbrous look that follows long repose, drew the paper quickly to one side and replied: "You may mind your affairs and leave me to mind my own. I write to my friend. I write to Mrs. Forrester." "You hand me that letter, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, in a mild but singularly determined tone, and after a moment Madame von Marwitz did hand it to her. Mrs. Talcott perused the first page. Then she lifted her eyes to her companion, who, averting hers with a sullen look, fixed them on the sea outside. It was raining and the sea was leaden. "Now just you listen to me, Mercedes Okraska," said Mrs. Talcott, heavily emphasizing her words and leaning the hand that held the letter on the writing-table, "I'll go straight up to London and tell the whole story to Mr. Jardine and Mrs. Forrester—the same as I told it to Karen with all that's happened here besides—I will as sure as my name's Hannah Talcott—if you write one word of that shameful idea to your friends. Lay down that pen." Madame von Marwitz did not lay it down, but she turned in her chair and confronted her accuser, though with averted eyes. "You say 'shameful.' I say, yes; shameful, and true. She has not gone to her husband. She has not gone to the Lippheims. I believe that he has joined her. I believe that it was arranged. I believe that she is with him now." "You can't look me in the eye and say you believe it, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott. Madame von Marwitz looked her in the eye, sombrely, and she then varied her former statement. "He has pursued her. He has found her. He will try to keep her. He is a depraved and dangerous man." "We'll let him alone. We're done with him for good and all, I guess. My point is this: don't you write any lies to your friends thinking that you're going to whiten yourself by blackening Karen. I'm speaking the sober truth when I say I'll go straight off to London and tell Mr. Jardine and Mrs. Forrester the whole story, unless you write a letter, right now, as you sit here, that I can pass." Again averting her eyes, Madame von Marwitz clutched her pen in rigid fingers and sat silent. "It is blackmail! Tyranny!" she ejaculated presently. "All right. Call it any name you like. But my advice to you, Mercedes, is to pull yourself together and see this thing straight for your own sake. I know what's the matter with you, you pitiful, silly thing; it's this young man; it makes you behave like a distracted creature. But don't you see as plain as can be that what Karen's probably done is to go to London and that Mr. Jardine'll find her in a day or two. Now when those two young people come together again, what kind of a story will Karen tell her husband about you—what'll he think of you—what'll your friends think of you—if they all find out that in addition to behaving like a wild-cat to that poor child because you were fairly daft with jealousy, and driving her away—oh, yes you did, Mercedes, it don't do any good to deny it now—if in addition to all that they find out that you've been trying to save your face by blackening her character? Why, they'll think you're the meanest skunk that ever walked on two legs; and they'll be about right. Whereas, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott had been standing square and erect for some time in front of her companion, and now, as her tone became more argumentative and persuasive, she allowed her tired old body to sag and rest heavily on one hip—"whereas if you write a nice, kind, loving, self-reproachful letter, all full of your dreadful anxiety and affection—why, if Karen ever sees it it'll soften her towards you perhaps; and it'll make all your friends sorry for you, too, and inclined to hush things up if Mr. Drew spreads the story around—won't it, Mercedes?"—Madame von Marwitz had turned in her chair and was staring before her with a deeply thoughtful eye.—"Why, it's as plain as can be, Mercedes, that that's your line." "True," Madame von Marwitz now said. "True." Her voice was deep and almost solemn. "You are right. Yes; you are right, Tallie." She leaned her forehead on her hand, shading her eyes as she pondered. "A letter of noble admission; of sorrow; of love. Ah! you recall me to my better self. It will touch her, Tallie; it is bound to touch her, is it not? She cannot feel the bitterness she now feels if she reads such a letter; is not that so, Tallie?" "That's so. You've got it," said Mrs. Talcott. Madame von Marwitz, however, continued to lean on her desk and to shade her eyes, and some moments of silence passed thus. Then, as she leaned, the abjectness of her own position seemed suddenly borne in upon her. 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 bastard!—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 impassively, "you've gone and spoiled your nice dress." "Damn 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 passed. 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 passed 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: <div class="blockquot">"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 passion 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 passing 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, passion. 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 assurances. 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, snatched her from him and spoke to them both with passionate 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 God 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." </div> 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: <div class="blockquot">"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." </div> 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 Handcock 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." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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