"You have left your husband—because of me—my poor child?"
Karen nodded. Mr. Drew's presence made speech impossible.
"He made it too difficult for you?"
Karen nodded again.
"And you have come back to me." Madame von Marwitz summed it up rather than inquired. And then, after another pause, she folded Karen in her arms.
The piercing question seemed answered. Yet Karen could not now have wept. A dry, hard desolation filled her. "May I go to my room, Tante?"
"Yes, my child. Go to your room. You will find Tallie. Tallie is in the house, I think—or did I send her in to Helston?—no, that was for to-morrow." She held Karen's hand at a stretch of her arm while she seemed, with difficulty still, to collect her thoughts. "But I will come with you myself. Yes; that is best. Wait here, Claude." This to the silent, dusky figure behind them.
"Do not let me be a trouble." Karen controlled the trembling of her voice. "I know my way."
"No trouble, my child; no trouble. Or none that I am not glad to take."
Tante had her now on the stair—her arm around her shoulders. "You will find us at sixes and sevens; a household hastily organized, but Tallie, directed by wires, has done wonders. So. My poor Karen. You have left him. For good? Or is it only to punish him that you come to me?"