in," he said with compassion. "It is
over and done with. You are going to be happy now."

"You have suffered too," she said, reddening.

"Not like you. It has been worst for you. I never guessed that you had
felt my imprisonment so much as I see now by your face you have."

"Not have felt it! Not have suffered from it!" said Fay, amazed.
"Michael, how could I help grieving day and night over it?"

The question almost rose to his lips, "Why then did you not release me?"
But the words were not spoken. There is one pain which we need not bear,
but which some of us never rest till we have drawn it upon ourselves,
that of extorting from the one we love vain excuses, unconscious lies,
feeble, inadequate explanations that explain nothing. Let be. The
excuses, the lies, these shadows of the mind will vanish the moment
Love lights his lamp. Till then their ghost-like presence, their
semblance of reality but show that the chamber of the Beloved is dark.

Michael was silent. Though his body and mind were half dead, his spirit
was alive and clear, moving swiftly where the spent mind could not
follow.

"How could I help breaking my heart over the thought of you in prison?"
said Fay again, wounded to the quick.

She stared at him, indignant tears smarting in her eyes. Another long
look passed between them, on her side bewildered, pained, aghast at
being so misunderstood, on his penetrating, melancholy, full of
compassionate insight, that look which seems to herald the parting
between two unequal natures, but which is in reality a perception that
they have never met.

"I knew you would rejoice when I was set free," he said tranquilly,
smiling at her. "Ah! Here are Magdalen and Wentworth. How radiant she
looks!"

When Magdalen and Fay had departed, and Wentworth had seen them to the
carriage, he came back and sat down by Michael.

"Not over-tired?" he said, smiling self-consciously, and poking holes in
the turf with his stick.

"Not in the least."

"She was looking a little pale to-day." It was obvious that he wished to
talk about Fay.

"She is more beautiful than ever," said Michael, willing to give his
brother a leg-up.

"Isn't she!" said the affianced lover expansively. "But it isn't her
beauty I love most, it is her _character_. She is so feminine, so
receptive, so appreciative of the deeper side of life, so absolutely
devoted. Her heart has been awakened for the first time, Michael. She
has, I feel sure, never b