"Magdalen did not make me come this time. I have come myself. Do
you think, is there any chance, Uncle John, that God will have mercy on
me again, like He did before?"

"Do you mean by God having mercy, that Wentworth will still marry you if
he knows the truth?"

She did not answer. That was of course what she meant.

She looked from one to the other of her three friends with a mute
imploring gaze. Their eyes fell before hers.

"I have not slept all night," she said to the Bishop. "Magdalen stayed
with me. And we came quite early because I had to come. Wentworth must
be told. It isn't because Magdalen says so. She hasn't said so, though I
know she felt he ought to be told from the first. And it isn't because
he's sure to find out. And oh! Michael, it isn't for your sake, to put
you right with him. It ought to be, but it isn't. But I can't let him
kiss me any more, and not say. It makes a kind of pain I can't bear. It
has been getting worse and worse ever since Michael came back, only I
did not know what it was at first, and yesterday----" she stopped short,
shuddering. "He came to see me yesterday," she said in a strangled
voice. "He was so dear and good, so wonderful. There never was anyone
like him. It is in my heart that he will forgive me. And he trusts me
entirely. I can't deceive him any more."

The eyes of Michael and Magdalen met in a kind of shame. Those two who
had loved her as no one else had loved her, who had understood her as no
one else had understood her, saw that they had misjudged her. They had
judged her by her actions, identified her with them. And all the time
the little trembling "pilgrim soul" in her was shrinking from the pain
of those very actions, was growing imperceptibly apart from them, was
beginning to regard them with horror, not because they had caused
suffering to others, but because they had ended by inflicting anguish
upon herself. The red-hot iron of our selfishness with which we brand
others becomes in time hot at both ends. We don't know at first what it
is that is hurting us, why it burns us. But our blistered hands, cling
as they will, must needs drop it at last. Fay's cruel little white hand
had let go.

Michael took it in his and kissed it.

"Wentworth is coming here this morning," said the Bishop gently. "He may
arrive at any moment. Stay here and speak to him. And ask him to forgive
you, Fay. You need his forgiveness."

"I don't know how to tell him," gasped Fay. "I