ange sail.

For Fay would come to him. The one woman in the world of counterfeits
would come to him, and set him free. She would take him in her arms at
last, and lay her cool healing touch upon his aching life. And he would
lean his forehead against her breast, and his long apprenticeship to
love would be over. It seemed to Michael that she was here already, her
soft cheek against his.

He pressed his face to the stone wall, and whispered as to her:

"Fay, have I served you?"

He almost heard her tremulous whisper, "Yes."

"Do you still love me?"

"Yes."

"We may love each other now."

Again Fay's voice very low. "Yes."

It had to be like that. This moment was only a faint foreshadowing of
that unendurable joy, which inevitably had to come.

A great trembling laid hold on Michael. He could not stand. He fell on
his knees, but he could not kneel. He stretched himself face downwards
on his pallet. But it was not low enough. He flung himself on the floor
of his cell, but it was not low enough. A grave would hardly have been
low enough. The resisting stone floor had to do instead.

And through the waves of awe and rapture that swept over him came
faintly down to him, as from some dim world left behind, the bells of
Venice, and the thin cry of the sea-mew rejoicing with him.

Can we call a life sad which has had in it one such blessed hour?

Luminous day followed luminous day, and the nights also were full of
light. His work was nothing to him. The increasing heat was nothing to
him. His chains were nothing to him.

But at last when the weeks drew into a month, two months, a chill doubt
took up its abode with him. It was resolutely cast out. But it returned.
It was fought against with desperation. It was scorned as want of faith.
Michael's strength waned with each conflict. But it always returned. At
last it became to him like a mysterious figure, always present with him.

"Fay," he whispered over and over again through the endless burning
nights of summer. "Dear one, come soon."

There was neither speech nor language, only the lying bells in the dawn.

The shadow deepened.

A frightful suspense laid its cold, creeping hold on Michael.

What could have happened?

Was she ill?

Was she dead?

He waited, and waited, and waited. Time stood still.

Let no one say that he has found life difficult till he has known what
it is to wait; till he has waited through the endless days that turn
into weeks m