It's you I betrayed, Michael. I'm so
thankful it was _you_, and not him."

"I was yours to keep or to throw away. You could do what you liked with
your own. But it is not the same for Wentworth. Wentworth belongs--to
_himself_."

In her heart she knew it. Love had shown even her certain things about
the man she loved.

"And I am afraid he might feel it if he found out that you had let me
stay--in Italy."

"I'd give anything I have," she said with a sob; "I'd give both my
hands, I'd give my being pretty, which I think so much of, and he thinks
so much of, I'd give anything if only I had not--done that, if I could
only undo that. Sometimes I wake in the morning and think I haven't done
it, that it's only a dream. And it's like Heaven! I cry for joy. And
then the knowledge comes. I did not know, Michael, what I was doing.
But since you came back I've _seen_; since I loved Wentworth I've
_seen_--what I've done to you; just brushed you aside when you got in
the way, and left you to die."

He looked at her in silence. It had come, the moment of anguished
realisation that he had foreseen for her, but it had come to her through
love for another. That to which his great love would fain have drawn
her, she had reached at last by a lesser love than his.

"I have been cruel to Wentworth. I might have tried to get you out for
his sake if not for yours. He never had a moment's happiness while you
were shut up. But I didn't. I didn't really care for him then. I only
tried at last to get you out, because I could not bear the misery of it
any longer. I have never cared for anyone but myself--till now. I see
now that I have been hard and cruel. I have always thought myself gentle
and loving and tender-hearted, like you thought me, poor, poor Michael.
You have paid for that. Like Wentworth thinks me now. Oh, Michael, _must
Wentworth pay too_?"

Michael looked at her with compassion. "I am afraid he must. But do not
let him pay a penny more than is necessary. You still have it in your
power to save him part of the--the expense. Let him pay the lesser price
instead of the greater. Tell him, instead of letting him find out."

Silence.

"It is the only thing to do, Fay."

No answer.

"I am afraid you do not love him after all," said the inexorable voice.

Again silence.

Michael dragged himself feebly from his chair, and took her clenched
hands between both of his.

"Love him a little more," he said. "Take the risk and tell