n to Saundersfoot
station, and then to Wrigley. Your servants thought you might possibly
have gone there. But you had not been seen there. Magdalen sent me to
tell you you must go back to the Palace. Your brother is very ill. He
had an attack of haemorrhage apparently just after you and he parted in
the hall. I promised her not to go back without you. Shall we drive
on?"

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Alles vergaengliche ist nur ein Gleichniss.--GOETHE.

Michael was dying. All night Magdalen and the Bishop, with nurse and
doctor, fought for his life, vainly strove to stem the stream of blood
with which his life was ebbing away.

He had been found by Lord Lossiemouth and a servant lying unconscious at
the foot of the staircase in the hall. He had been carried into a room
on the ground floor. Everything had been done, but without avail.
Michael was dying, suffocating in anguish, threshing his life out
through the awful hours, in wild delirium.

He was in prison once more, beating against the bars of his narrow
window looking out over the lagoon. His hoarse strangled voice spoke
unceasingly. His hands plucked at his wrists, and then dropped exhausted
beneath the weight of the chains which dragged him down.

Magdalen would fain have spared Fay the ordeal of that vigil. But the
Bishop was inexorable. He bade her remain. And shrunk away in a corner,
shivering to her very soul, Fay listened hour by hour to the wild feeble
voice of her victim, back once more in the cell where he had been so
silent, where the walls had kept his counsel so well. She saw
something--at last--of what he had endured for her, of what he had made
so light.

At last the paroxysm passed. Michael pushed back the walls with his
hands, and then suddenly gave up the struggle.

"They are closing in on me," he said. "I cannot keep them back any
longer."

The contest ceased all in a moment. He lay back motionless with
half-closed eyes, his face blue against the white pillows. The blood had
ceased at last to flow from his colourless lips. Death was very near.

He knew no one. Not the Bishop, not Magdalen who kept watch beside him,
listening ever for Wentworth's step outside.

In the dawn Michael's spirit made as if to depart, but it seemed as if
it could not gain permission.

The light grew.

And with the light the laboured breathing became easier. He stirred
feebly, and whispered incoherently from time to time. He was still in
his cell. Wentwor