Still with her eyes hidden the girl hesitated as if bewildered by the pressure of new realisations. "You would leave me much alone? You would not talk to me? I should be quiet?"
"Oh, my Karen—quiet—quiet—" Madame von Marwitz was now sobbing. "You will send for me if you feel that you can see me; unless you send I do not obtrude myself on you. You will have an attendant of your own. All shall be as you wish."
"And when I am free I may choose my own life?"
"Free! free! the world before you! all that I have at your feet, to spurn or stoop to!" Tante moaned incoherently.
"When will it be—that we must go?" Karen then, more faintly, asked. Madame von Marwitz had risen to her feet. In her ecstasy of gladness she could have clapped her hands above her head and danced. And the strong control she put upon herself gave to her face almost the grimace of a child that masters its weeping. She was drawn from her well. She stood upon firm ground. "In two days, my child, if you are strong enough. In two days we will set sail."
"In two days," Karen repeated. And, dully, she repeated again; "I come with you in two days."
Madame von Marwitz now noticed that tears ran from under the hand. These tears of Karen's alarmed her. She had not wept at all before to-day.
"My child is worn and tired. She would rest. Is it not so? Shall I leave her?" she leaned above the girl to ask.
"Yes; I am tired," said Karen.
And leaning there, above the hidden face, above the heart wrung with its secret agony, in all her ecstasy and profound relief, Madame von Marwitz knew one of the bitterest moments of her life. She had gained safety. But what was her loss, her irreparable loss? In the dark little staircase she leaned, as on the day of her coming, against the wall, and murmured, as she had murmured then: "Bon Dieu! Bon Dieu!" But the words were broken by the sobs that, now uncontrollably, shook her as she stumbled on in the darkness.