"You mean that my mother was a criminal?"
Even at this moment of his despair Gregory was horribly sorry. Yet the memory that she recalled brought a deeper fear for her future. He had spoken with irony of her suggestion about divorce and freedom. But did not her very blood, as well as her environment, give him reason to emphasise his warning?
"I didn't mean that. I wasn't thinking of that," he said, "as you must know. And to be criminally foolish is a very different thing from being a criminal. But I'm convinced that to break social laws—and these laws about men and women have deeper than merely social sanctions—to break them, I'm convinced, can bring no happiness. I feel about your mother, and what she did—I say it with all reverence—that she was as mistaken as she was unfortunate. And I beg of you, Karen, never to follow her example."
"It is not for you to speak of her!" Karen said, not moving from her place but uttering the words with a still and sudden passion that he had never heard from her. "It is not for you to preach sermons to me on the text of my mother's misfortunes. I do not call them misfortunes—nor did she. I do not accept your laws, and she was not afraid of them. How dare you call her unfortunate? She lost nothing that she valued and she gained great happiness, and gave it, for she was happy with my father. It was a truer marriage than any I have known. She was more married than you or I have ever been or could ever have been; for there was deep love between them, and trust and understanding. Do not speak to me of her. I forbid it."
She turned to the door. Gregory sprang to her side and seized her wrist. "Karen! Where are you going? Wait till to-morrow!" he exclaimed, fear for her actual safety surmounting every other feeling.
She stood still under his hand and looked at him with her still passion of repudiation. "I will not wait. I shall go to-night to Frau Lippheim. And to-morrow I shall go to Cornwall. I shall tell Mrs. Barker to pack my clothes and send them to me there."
"You have no money."
"Frau Lippheim will lend me money. My guardian will take care of me. It is not for you to have any thought for me."
He dropped her arm. "Very well. Go then," he said.
He turned from her. He heard that she paused, the knob of the door in her hand. "Good-bye," she then said.