It was not the moment for dispute. Louise had re-entered with the veil and Madame von Marwitz bound it about her head, standing before the mirror, and gazing at herself, fixedly and unseeingly, with dark eyes set in purpled orbits. She turned then and swept from the room, and Mrs. Talcott, pinning on her hat as she went, followed her. Not until they were speeding through the fresh, chill air, did Mrs. Talcott speak. Madame von Marwitz, leaning to one side of the open car, scanned the stretch of road before them, melancholy and monotonous under the pale morning sky, and Mrs. Talcott, moving round determinedly in her corner, faced her. "I want to tell you, right now, Mercedes," said Mrs. Talcott, "that Karen's done with you. There's no use in your coming, for you'll never get her back. I've told her all about you, Mercedes;--yes, I ain't afraid of you and you know it;--I told her. I made up my mind to it last night after I'd seen you and heard all your shameful story and how you'd treated her. I made up my mind that you shouldn't get hold of her again, not if I could help it. The time had come to tell that child that her husband was right all along and that you ain't a woman to be trusted. She'd seen for herself what you could do, and I made a sure thing of it. I've held my tongue for all my life, but I spoke out last night. I want her to be quit of you for good. I want her to go back to her husband. Yes, Mercedes; I've burst up the whole concern." Madame von Marwitz, her hand holding tightly the side of the car and her eyes like large, dark stones in her white face, was sitting upright and was staring at her. She could not speak and Mrs. Talcott went on. "She knows all about you now; about you and Baldwin Tanner and you and Ernst, and about that pitiful young Russian. She knows how you treated them. She knows how it wasn't you but Ernst who was her real friend, and how you didn't want her to live with you. She knows that you're a mighty unfortunate creature and a mighty dangerous one; and what I advise you to do, Mercedes, is to get out here and go right home. Karen won't ever come back to you again, I'm as sure of it as I'm sure my name's Hannah Talcott." They sped, with softly singing speed, through the chill morning air. The hard, tight, dark eyeballs still fixed themselves on the old woman almost lifelessly, and still she sat grasping the side of the car. She had the look of a creature shot through the heart and maintaining the poise and pride of its startled and arrested life. Mechanical forces rather than volition seemed to sustain her. "Say, Mercedes, will you get out?" Mrs. Talcott repeated. And the rigid figure then moved its head slightly in negation. They reached the cross-roads where a few carts and an ancient fly stood waiting for the arrival of the omnibus that plied between the Lizard and Helston. Karen was nowhere to be seen.