is a great
deal for him. You don't believe it, but he really does. And he'll want
her more than ever--when I'm gone."

The Bishop looked keenly at his godson.

Michael had never before alluded to his precarious hold on life. It was
obvious that he was only considering it now in its bearings on
Wentworth's future.

"Can a man who has grown grey looking at himself in the glass, and
recording his own microscopic experiences in a diary, can such a man
_forgive_?" said the Bishop. "Forgiveness is tough work. It needs
knowledge of human nature. It needs humility. I forgave somebody once
long ago. And it nearly was the death of me. I've never been the same
man since."

"Wentworth will have his chance," said Michael. "It's about all we can
do for him."

"We all know he says he can, but then he says such a lot of things. He
dares to say he loves his fellow men. But I've never yet found that
assertion coincide with any real _working_ regard for them. There are
certain things which those who care for others never say, and that is
one of them. The egoist on the contrary is always asserting of himself
what he ought in common decency to leave others to say of him,--only
they never do. Wentworth actually told me not so long ago that he was
intent on the service of others. I told him it was for those others to
mention that interesting fact, and that nobody had lied about him to
that extent so far in my diocese."

"He always says that there is perfect confidence between us," said
Michael. "I've heard him say so ever since I can remember, and I've
heard him tell people that I always brought him my boyish troubles. But
I never did, even as a boy, even when I got into a scrape at Eton. My
tutor stood by me in that. Wentworth never could endure him. He said he
was such a snob. But snob or not, he was a firm friend to me. And I
never told him even at the first of my love for Fay. I somehow could
not. You simply can't tell Wentworth things. But he has got it into his
head that I always have, and that this is the first time I have kept
anything from him. If I had only Fay's leave to tell him! It is the only
thing to do."

The door opened, and to the astonishment of both men, Fay and Magdalen
came in. Fay looked as exhausted, as hopeless, as she had done three
months ago when Magdalen had brought her to make her confession to the
Bishop in this very room.

She evidently remembered it. She turned her lustreless eyes on him and
said,