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.