Madame von Marwitz remained kneeling for some moments longer. Then a dark flush mounted to her face. She became aware that her knees were stiff with kneeling and her cheeks salt with tears. Her head ached and a feeling of nausea made her giddy. She rose and looked about her with dim eyes.
A small wooden chair stood against the wall at a little distance from the bed. She went to it and sank down upon it, and leaning her head upon her hand she wept softly to herself. Her desolation was extreme.
Karen listened to her for a long time, and without any emotion. Now that the horror had passed, her only feeling was one of sorrow and oppression. She was very sorry for the weeping woman; but she wished that she would go away. And her mind at last wandered from the thought of Tante. "Where is Franz?" she asked.
The fount of Madame von Marwitz's tears was exhausted. She dried her eyes and cheeks. She blew her nose. She gathered together her thoughts. "Karen," she said, "I will not speak of myself. You say that you do not love me. I can only pray that my love for you may in time win you to me again. Never again, I know it, can I stand before you, untarnished, as I stood before; but I will trust my child's deep heart as strength once more comes to her. Pity will grow to love. I will love you; that will be enough. But I have come to you not only as a mother to her child. I have come to you as a friend to whom your welfare is of the first importance. I have much to say to you, Karen."
Madame von Marwitz rose. She went to the washhand-stand and bathed her face. The triumph that she had held in her hand seemed melting through her fingers; but, thinking rapidly and deeply, she drew the scattered threads of the plan together once more, faced her peril and computed her resources.
The still face on the pillow was unchanged, its eyes still calmly closed. She could not attempt to take the hand of this alien Karen, nor even to touch her sleeve. She went back to her chair.
"Karen," she said, "if you cannot love me, you can still think of me as your friend and counsellor. I am glad to hear you speak of our Franz. That lights my way. I have had much talk with our good and faithful Franz. Together we have faced all that there is of difficult and sad to face. My child shall be spared all that could trouble her. Franz and I are beside you through it all. Your husband, Karen, is to divorce you because of Franz. You are to be set free, my child."
A strange thing happened then. If Madame von Marwitz had plunged a dagger into Karen's heart, the change that transformed her deathly face could hardly have been more violent. It was as if all the amazed and desperate life fled to her eyes and lips and cheeks. Colour flooded her. Her eyes opened and shone. Her lips parted, trembled, uttered a loud cry. She turned her head and looked at her guardian. Her dream was with her. What was that loud cry for help, hers or his?
Madame von Marwitz looked back and her face, too, was changed. Realizations, till then evaded, flashed over it as though from Karen's it caught the bright up-flaming of the truth. Fear followed, darkening it. Karen's truth threatened the whole fabric of the plan, threatened her life in all that it held of value. Resentment for a moment convulsed it. Then, with a steady mastery, yet the glance, sunken, sickened, of one who holds off disabling pity while he presses out a fluttering life beneath his hand, she said: "Yes, my child. Your wild adventure is known. You have been here for days and nights with this young man who loves you and he has given you his name. Your husband seizes the opportunity to free himself. Can you not rejoice, Karen, that it is to set you free also? It is of that only that I have thought. I have rejoiced for you. And I have told Franz that I will stand by you and by him so that no breath of shame or difficulty shall touch you. In me you have the staunchest friend."
Madame von Marwitz, while she addressed these remarks to the strange, vivid face that stared at her with wide and shining eyes, was aware of a sense of nausea and giddiness so acute that she feared she might succumb to sickness. She put her hand before her eyes, reflecting that she must have some food if she were to think clearly. She sat thus for some moments, struggling against the invading weakness. When she looked up again, the flame whose up-leaping had so arrested her, which had, to be just, so horrified her, was fallen to ashes.