to marry them, but they could never really love them.
She, Fay, carried with her the talisman.

A horrible doubt seized her, just when she was becoming calm. Supposing
Michael would not! Oh! but he _would_ if he cared as she did. The
sacrifice was all on the woman's side. No one thought much the worse of
men when they did these things. And Michael was so good, so honourable
that he would certainly never desert her. They would become legal
husband and wife directly Andrea divorced her.

From underneath these matted commonplaces, Fay's muffled conscience
strove to reach her with its weak voice.

"Stop, stop!" it said. "You will injure him. You will tie a noose round
his neck. You will spoil his life. And Andrea! He has been kind in a
way. And your marriage vows! And your own people at home! And Magdalen,
the sister who loves you. Remember her! Stop, stop! Let Michael go. You
were obliged to relinquish him once. Let him go again now."

Fay believed she went through a second conflict. Perhaps there lurked at
the back of her mind the image of Michael's set face--set away from her;
and that image helped her at last to say to herself, "Yes. It is right.
I will let him go."

But did she really mean it? For while she said over and over again,
"Yes, yes; we must part," she decided that it was necessary to see him
just once again, to bid him a last farewell, to strengthen him to live
without her. She could not reason it out, but she knew that it was
absolutely essential to the welfare of both that they should see each
other just once more before they parted--_for ever_. The parting no
longer loomed so awful in her mind if there was to be a meeting before
it took place. She almost forgot it directly her mind could find a
staying point on the thought of that one last sacred interview, of all
she should say, of all they would both feel.

But how to see him! He had said he would not come back. He left Rome in
a few days. She should see him officially on Thursday, when he was in
attendance on his chief. But what was the use of that? He would hardly
exchange a word with her. She might decide to see _him_ alone; but what
if he refused to see _her_? Instinctively Fay knew that he would so
refuse.

"We must part." Just so. But how to hold him? How to draw him to her
just once more? That was the crux.

In novels if a woman needs the help of the chivalrous man ever kneeling
in the background, she sends him a ring. Fay looked earnest