She felt no fear and little surprise. She wondered, placidly, fixing her eyes upon the patterned square of blue and green. And upon this background, like that of some old Italian picture, there rose the head and shoulders of Mrs. Talcott. Karen raised herself on her elbow and stared. The river stopped in its gliding; the mists rolled away; the world rocked and swayed and settled firmly into a solid, visible reality; Mrs. Talcott's face and her round black straw hat and her black caped shoulders, hoisting themselves up to the window-sill. Never in her life was she to forget the silhouette on the sky and the branching tree, nor Mrs. Talcott's resolute, large, old, face, nor the gaze that Mrs. Talcott's eyes fixed on her as she came. Mrs. Talcott put her knee on the window-sill and then struggled for a moment, her foot engaged in the last rung of the ladder; then she turned and stepped down backwards into the room. Karen, raised on her elbow, was trembling. "Lay down, honey," said Mrs. Talcott, gently and gravely, as they looked at each other; and, as she came towards the bed, Karen obeyed her and joined her hands together. "Oh, will you come with us?" she breathed. "Will you stay with me? I can live if you stay with me, Mrs. Talcott--dear Mrs. Talcott." She stretched out her hands to her, and Mrs. Talcott, sitting down on the bed beside her, took her in her arms. "You're all right, now, honey. I'm not going to leave you," she said, stroking back Karen's hair. Karen leaned her head against her breast, and closed her eyes. "Listen, honey," said Mrs. Talcott, who spoke in low, careful tones: "I want to ask you something. Do you love Franz Lippheim? Just answer me quiet and easy now. I'm right here, and you're as safe as safe can be." Karen, on Mrs. Talcott's breast, shook her head. "Oh, no, Mrs. Talcott; you could not believe that. Why should I love dear Franz?" "Then it's only so as to set your husband free that you're marrying Franz?" Mrs. Talcott went on in the same even voice. "But no, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen, "I am not going to marry Franz." And now she lifted her head and looked at Mrs. Talcott. "Why do you ask me that? Who has told you that I am to marry Franz?" Mrs. Talcott, keeping an arm around her, laid her back on the pillow. "But, Karen, if you run off like that with Franz and come here and stay as his wife," she said, "and get your husband to divorce you by acting so, it's natural that people should think that you're going to marry the young man, ain't it?"