Madame von Marwitz felt it advisable, then, to take the doctor into her confidence. He grew graver as she spoke. He looked at her with eyes more scrutinizing, more troubled and more perplexed. But, reluctantly, he saw her point. The unfortunate young woman upstairs, a fugitive from her husband, must be spared the shock of a possible brutal encounter. Perhaps, in a day or two, it might be possible to move her. She could be taken in her bed to Southampton and carried on board the yacht.
Madame von Marwitz wired at once and secured the yacht.
It was after this interview with the doctor, after the sending of the wire, that she mounted the staircase to Karen's room with the most difficult part of her task still before her. She had as yet not openly broached to Karen the question of what the immediate future should be. She approached it now by a circuitous way, seating herself near Karen's bed and unfolding and handing to her a letter she had that morning received from Franz. It was a letter she could show. Franz was in Germany.
"The dear Franz. The good Franz," Madame von Marwitz mused, when Karen had finished and her weak hand dropped with the letter to the sheet. "No woman had ever a truer friend than Franz. You see how he writes, Karen. He will never trouble you with his hopes."
"No; Franz will never trouble me," said Karen.
"Poor Franz," Madame von Marwitz repeated. "He will be seen by the world as a man who refuses to marry his mistress when she is freed."
"I am not his mistress," said Karen, who, for all her apathy, could show at moments a disconcerting vehemence.
"You will be thought so, my child."
"Not by him," said Karen.
"No; not by him," Madame von Marwitz assented with melancholy.