Fay shivered from head to foot, and looked at her lover.
Both men had forgotten her. Their eyes never left each other. Wentworth's fierce face was turned with deadly hatred upon his brother. Michael met his eye, but he did not speak.
There was death in the air.
Suddenly as in a glass she saw that Michael was saving her again, was sacrificing himself for a second time at enormous cost, the cost of his brother's love.
"Michael!" said Fay with a sob, "Michael, I can't bear it. You are trying to save me again, but I can't bear to be saved any more. I have had enough of being saved. I won't be saved. It hurts too much. I won't let you do it a second time. I have had enough of being silent when I ought to speak, I have had enough of hiding things, and pretending, and being frightened."
Fay saw at last that the truth was her only refuge from that unendurable horror which was getting up out of its grave again. She fled to it for very life, and flung herself upon it.
She took Michael's hand, and turning to Wentworth began to speak rapidly, with a clearness and directness which amazed Magdalen and the Bishop.
It all came out, the naked truth; her loveless marriage, the great kindness of her husband towards her, her determination bred of idleness and vanity to enslave Michael anew when he came to Rome, his resistance, his decision to leave Italy, her inveigling him under plea of urgency to come to the garden at night, his refusal to enter the house, her frantic desire to keep him, his determination to part from her.
There was no doubt in the minds of those who listened in awed silence that here was the whole truth at last.
Fay looked full at Wentworth and then said: "He asked me why I had sent for him, what it was that he could do for me. And I said—I said—'Take me with you.'"