"My dearest little mama!" exclaimed Marie, hastening toward the kneeling woman, and trying to lift her from the floor, "what is the matter? What has happened?"
"Don't touch me," moaned the baroness. "Don't come near me. I am a murderess. I murdered her who called me mother."
She held the ivory locket toward Marie, and added: "See, this is what she was like when I deserted her—my little daughter Amélie!"
"Your daughter?" repeated Marie, wonderingly. "You have been married? Are you a widow?"
"I am."
Katharina now held toward the young girl the portrait M. Cambray had given her. "And this," she explained in a hollow tone, "is what she is like now—now, when I wanted her to come to me."
"Good heaven!" ejaculated Marie, gazing in terror at the miniature, "she is dead?"
"Yes—murdered—as you, too, will be if you stay with me! You must fly—fly at once!"
"Katharina!" interposed the young girl, "why do you speak so?"
"I say that you must leave me. Go—go at once! Go down to the parsonage, and ask Herr Mercatoris to give you shelter. Tell him to clothe you in rags; and when you hear the tramp of horses, hide yourself, and don't venture from your concealment until they are gone. I, too, am going away from here."