"He believes her to be a bad woman, Karen; do you realise that; has he told you that; can you bear it? Dangerous, unscrupulous, tyrannous, devoured by egotism, were the words he used of her. I shall not forget them. He accused her of hypocrisy in her feeling for you. He hoped that you might never see her again. It is terrible, Karen. Terrible. It puts us all--all of us who love Mercedes, and you through her, into the most impossible position." Karen sat, her head erect, her eyes downcast, with a rigidity of expression almost torpid. "Do you see the position he puts us in, Karen?" Mrs. Forrester went on with insistence. "Have you had the matter out with Gregory? Did you realise its gravity? I must really beg you to answer me." "I have not yet spoken with my husband," said Karen, in a chill, lifeless tone. "But you will? You cannot let it pass?" "No, Mrs. Forrester. I will not let it pass." "You will insist that he shall make a full apology to Mercedes?" "Is he to apologise to her for hating her?" Karen at this asked suddenly. "For hating her? What do you mean?" Mrs. Forrester was taken aback. "If he is to apologise," said Karen, in a still colder, still more lifeless voice, "it must be for something that can be changed. How can he apologise to her for hating her if he continues to hate her?" "He can apologise for having spoken insultingly to her." "He has not done that. It was Tante who overheard what she was not intended to hear. And it was Tante who spoke with violence." "It amazes me to hear you put it on her shoulders, Karen. He can apologise, then, for what he has said to me," said Mrs. Forrester with indignation. "You will not deny that what he said of her to me was insulting." "He is to tell her that he has said those words and then apologise, Mrs. Forrester? Oh, no; you do not think what you say." "Really, my dear Karen, you have a most singular fashion of speaking to a person three times your age!" Mrs. Forrester exclaimed, the more incensed for the confusion of thought into which the girl's persistence threw her. "The long and short of it is that he must make it possible for Mercedes to meet him, with decency, in the future." "But I do not know how that can be," said Karen, rising as Mrs. Forrester rose; "I do not know how Tante, now, can see him. If he thinks these things and does not say them, there may be pretence; but if he says them, to Tante's friends, how can there be pretence?" There was no appeal in her voice. She put the facts, so evident to herself, before her visitor and asked her to look at them. Mrs. Forrester was suddenly aware that her advice might have been somewhat hasty. She also felt suddenly as though, on a reconnoitring march down a rough but open path, she found herself merging in the gloomy mysteries of a forest. There were hidden things in Karen's voice.