Mrs. Talcott did not reply to this for some moments; then she laid her hand on Karen's shoulder. "That's it," she said. "She's beautiful and it most kills us to find out how cruel and bad she can be. But I guess we can't judge people like Mercedes, Karen. When you go through life like a mowing-machine and see everyone flatten out before you, you must get kind of exalted ideas about yourself. If anything happens that makes a hitch, or if anybody don't flatten out, why it must seem to you as if they were wrong in some way, doing you an injury. That's the way it is with Mercedes. She don't mean to be cruel, she don't mean to be bad; but she's a mowing-machine and if you get in her way she'll cut you up fine and leave you behind. And the thing for you to do, Karen, is to get out of her way as quick as you can." "Yes, I am going," said Karen. Again Mrs. Talcott sat silent. "I'd like to talk to you about that, Karen," she then said. "I want to ask you to give up going to Frau Lippheim. There ain't any sense in that. It's a poor plan. What you ought to do, Karen, is to go right back to your nice young husband." Karen, who sat on as if crushed beyond the point where anything could crush her further, shook her head. "Do not ask me that, Mrs. Talcott," she said. "I can never go back to him." "But, Karen, I guess you've got to own now that he was right and you were wrong in that quarrel of yours. I guess you'll have to own that it must have made him pretty sick to see her putting him in the wrong with you all the time and spoiling everything; and there's no one on earth can do that better than Mercedes." "I see it all," said Karen. "But that does not change what happened between Gregory and me. He does not love me. I saw it plainly. If he had me back it would only be because he cares for conventions. He said cruel things to me." "I guess you said cruel things to him, Karen." Karen shook her head slightly, with weariness rather than impatience. "No, for he saw that it was my loyalty to her--my love of her--that he was wounding. And he never understood. He never helped me. I can never go back to him, for he does not love me." "Now, see here, Karen," said Mrs. Talcott, after a pause, "you just let me work it out. You'll have a good sleep and to-morrow morning I'll see you off, before Mercedes is up, to a nice little farm near here that I know about--just a little way by train--and there you'll stay, nice and quiet, and I'll not let Mercedes know where you are. And I'll write to Mr. Jardine and tell him just what's happened and what you meant to do, and that you want to go to Frau Lippheim; and you mark my words, Karen, that nice young husband of yours'll be here quicker than you can say Jack Robinson." Karen had dropped her hands and was looking at her old friend intently. "Mrs. Talcott, you do not understand," she said. "You cannot write to him. Have I not told you that he does not love me?"