to-morrow. Perhaps Michael will insist on taking me away with him,
from this death in life, this hell on earth."

What large imposing words! How well they sounded! Yes, in a way Fay was
enjoying herself.

Often during the evening she saw the grave, kindly eyes of the duke upon
her. Once he came up to her, and paid her a little exquisite compliment.
Her disgust and hatred of him were immediately forgotten. She smiled
back at him. She did not love him of course. A man like that did not
know what love was. But Fay had never yet felt harshly towards any man
who admired her. The husband who did not understand her watched her with
something of the indulgent, protecting expression which we see on the
face of the owner of an enchanting puppy, which is ready to gallop on
india rubber legs after any pair of boots which appears on its low
horizon.

* * * * *

The guests had ebbed away by degrees. Lord John Alington, a tall, bald,
boring Englishman, and one or two others, remained behind, arranging
some expedition with the duke.

Michael's chief had long since gone. Michael did not depart with him,
but took his leave a few moments later. Michael's departure from Rome
the following day on urgent affairs was generally known. The duke had
watched him bid Fay a mechanical farewell, and had then expressed an
urbane regret at his departure. The thin, pinched face of the young man
appealed to the elder one. The duke had liked him from the first.

"It is time he went," he said to himself as he watched Michael leave the
room. As Michael left it Fay's excitement dropped from her, and she
became conscious of an enormous fatigue. A few minutes later she dragged
herself up the great pictured staircase to her little boudoir
overlooking the garden, and sank down exhausted on a couch. Her pretty
Italian maid was waiting for her in the adjoining bedroom, and came to
her, and began to unfasten her jewels.

Fay dismissed her for the night, saying she was not going to bed yet.
She often stayed up late reading. She was of those who say that they
have no time for reading in the day, and who like to look up (or rather,
to say afterwards they looked up) to find the solemn moon peering in at
them.

To-night there was no solemn or otherwise disposed moon.

Fay's heart suddenly began to beat so wildly that it seemed as if she
would suffocate. What violent emotion was this which was flooding her,
sweeping away all lan