tried yesterday, and I
couldn't."

"Let me tell him," said Michael, and as he spoke, the door opened once
more, and Wentworth was announced.

He had got ready what he meant to say. The venomous sentences which he
had concocted during a sleepless night were all in order in his mind.

Who shall say what grovelling suspicions, what sordid conjectures, had
blocked his inflamed mind as he drove swiftly across the downs in the
still June morning? He meant to extort an explanation from his brother,
to have the whole subject out with him once for all. He should not be
suffered to make Fay his accomplice for another hour. His tepid spirit
burned within him when he thought of Michael's behaviour to Fay. He said
to himself that he could forgive that least of all.

He had expected to find Michael alone, or possibly the Bishop only with
him, the Bishop who _knew_. He was disconcerted at finding Fay and
Magdalen there before him.

A horrible suspicion that Magdalen also knew darted across his mind.

It was obvious to him that he had broken up a conference, a conspiracy.
His bitter face darkened still more.

"I don't know what you are all plotting about so early in the morning,"
he said. "I must apologise for interrupting you. I seem to be always in
the way now-a-days. People are always whispering behind my back. But I
have come over to see Michael. I want a few plain words with him without
delay, and I intend to have them."

"That is well," said the Bishop, "because you are about to have them. We
were speaking of you when you came in."

"I wish to see Michael alone," said Wentworth, stung by the Bishop's
instant admission of being in his brother's confidence.

He looked only at Michael, who, his eyes on the ground, was leaning
white as death against the mantelpiece.

"Do you wish us to go, Michael?" said the Bishop.

"I wish you all to stay," he said, raising his eyes for a moment. His
hand shook so violently that he knocked over a little ornament on the
mantelpiece, and it fell with a crash into the fireplace. His voice
shook, too, but his eyes were steady. His great physical weakness,
poignantly apparent though it was, seemed a thing apart from him, like a
cloak which he might discard at any moment.

"I cannot say all I have to say before others," said Wentworth fiercely,
"even if they are all his confederates in trying to keep me in the dark,
all, that is, except Fay. We know by experience that she can shield a
man