e without Magdalen.
Magdalen was not like Andrea in that. She at any rate was concealing
nothing, could know nothing. Now that Andrea was dead, only one living
person beside herself _knew_--Michael. Fay was unconsciously growing to
hate the thought of that one other person, to turn with horror from the
remembrance of Michael: his sufferings, his patient life in death
filled her with nausea, disgust. Her vehement selfish passion for him
had been smothered by the hideous debris which had been cast upon it.

She had never loved him, as the duke well knew, and now the shivering
remembrance of him, constantly renewed by Wentworth, had become like a
poignard in a wound that would not heal. Wentworth had to-day yet again
unconsciously turned the dagger in the wound, and her whole being
sickened and shuddered. Oh! if she could only tear out that sharp-bladed
remembrance and cast it from her, then in time the aching wound in her
life might heal, and she might become happy and well and at peace once
more;--at peace like Magdalen. An envious anger flared up in her mind
against Magdalen's calm and happy face.

Oh, if poor Michael could only die! He wanted to die. If only he could
die and release her. _Release her from what?_

From her duty to speak and set him free? Those were the words which she
never permitted the rebel voice within to say. Still, they were there,
silenced for the time, but always waiting to be said. Their gagged
whisper reached her in spite of herself.

Oh! if only Michael were dead and out of his suffering, then she would
never be tortured by them any more. Then, too, her husband's words would
lose their poisoned point, and she could thrust them forth from her mind
for ever.

"Francesca, how much longer will you keep your cousin Michael in
prison?"

Oh! Cruel, cruel Andrea, vindictive to the very gates of death.

Down the empty, whispering gallery of ghostly fears in which her life
crouched, Michael's voice spoke to her also. She could hear his grave,
low tones. "Think of me as in fairy-land."

That tender, compassionate message had a barbed point which pierced
deeper even than the duke's words.

Her lover and her husband seemed to have conspired together to revenge
themselves upon her.

Fay leaned her pretty head against the window-sill and sobbed
convulsively.

Poor little soul in prison, weeping behind the bars of her cell, that
only her own hands could open!

Were not Fay and Michael both pr