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: "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." 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." CHAPTER XXXIX It was on the second morning after this that the letters were brought in to Madame von Marwitz while she and Mrs. Talcott sat in the music-room together. The two days had told upon them both. The face of Mercedes was like a beautiful fruit, rain-sodden and gnawed at the heart by a worm. Mrs. Talcott's was more bleached, more desolate, more austere. The one letter that Handcock brought to Mrs. Talcott was from Gregory Jardine: "Dear Mrs. Talcott," it said, "Thank you for your kind note. I am very unhappy and only a little less unhappy than when Karen left me. One cause of our estrangement is, perhaps, removed; but the fact borne in upon me at the time of that parting was that, while she was everything in life to me, she hardly knew the meaning of the words love and marriage. I need not tell you that I will do all in my power to induce her to return to me, and all in my power to win her heart. It was useless to make any attempt at reconciliation while her guardian stood between us. I cannot pretend that I feel more kindly towards Madame von Marwitz now; rather the reverse. It is plain to me that she has treated Karen shamefully. You must forgive me for my frankness.--Sincerely yours, "Gregory Jardine."