ly at her
rings. But Michael might not understand if she sent him one, and if the
duke intercepted it he would certainly entirely misconstrue the
situation.

Fay sat down at her writing-table, and got out her note-paper. Truth
compels me to state that it was of blue linen, that it had a little gilt
coronet on it, and that it was scented.

She thought a long time. At least she bit the little silver owl at the
end of her pen for a long time. She tore up several sheets. At last she
wrote in her large, slanting, dashing handwriting:

"_I know that we must part. You are right and I wish it too. It is
all like a terrible dream, and what will the awakening be?_" (Fay
did not quite know what she meant by this, but it impressed her
deeply as she wrote it, and a tear dropped on "the awakening" and
made it look like "reckoning." She was not of those, however, who
having once written one word ever think it can be mistaken for
another; and really reckoning did quite as well as awakening.)
"_But I must see you once before you go. I have something of urgent
importance to say to you._" (It was not clear to Fay what the
matter of importance was. But has not everyone in love laboured
daily under a burden as big as Christian's, of subjects which
demand instant discussion, or the bearer may fall into a state of
melancholia? Fay was convinced as she wrote that there was
something she ached to say to him: and also the point was to say
something that would bring him.) "_Don't fail me. You have never
failed me yet. You left me before when it was right we should part.
Did I try to keep you then? Did I say one word to hold you back?_"
(Fay's heart swelled as she wrote those words. She saw, bathed in a
new light, her own courage and uprightness in the past. She
realised her extraordinary strength of character. She had not
faltered then.) "_I did not falter then. I will not do so now,
though this time is harder than the first._" (It certainly was.)
"_You have to come to my little party on Thursday with your chief.
I cannot speak to you then. I am closely watched. When the others_
_have gone come back through the gardens. The door by the fountain
will be unlocked, and come up the balcony steps to my sitting-room.
The balcony window will be open. You know that I should not ask you
to do this unless it was urg