"Fay," she said in a great compassion. "How much longer will you torture yourself and Michael? How much longer will you keep him in prison?"
Fay was transfixed.
Those were the same words that Andrea had said on his deathbed. Those words were alive, though he was dead. Never to any living creature, not even to Magdalen, had she repeated them. Yet Magdalen was saying them. She could not withstand them any longer. The very stones would shriek them out next.
She fell at Magdalen's feet with a cry.
"I will speak," she gasped in mortal terror. "I will speak." And she clung for very life to her sister's knees, and hid her face in her gown.
CHAPTER XXII
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To-day unbind the captive, So only are ye unbound. |
—Emerson.
The following afternoon saw Magdalen and Fay driving together to Lostford, to consult the Bishop as to what steps it would be advisable to take in the matter of Michael's release. Magdalen felt it would be well-nigh impossible to go direct to Wentworth, even if he had been at Barford. But he had been summoned to London the day before on urgent business. And with Fay even a day's delay might mean a change of mind. It was essential to act at once.