Part 46 (1/2)

He turned towards his brother, still supporting himself with one hand on the mantelpiece. The two stern faces confronted each other, and Magdalen for the first time saw a likeness between them.

”I have kept things from you. You are right there,” said Michael, speaking in a low, difficult voice. ”But I never intentionally deceived you till the Marchese was murdered. Long before that, four years before that, I fell in love.”

Wentworth's heart contracted. He had always feared that moment for Michael, had always awaited it with a little store of remedial maxims.

He had felt confident that Michael had never even been slightly attracted by any woman. How often he had said to himself that if there had been any attraction he should have been the first to know of it. Yet the incredible truth was being thrust at him that Michael had struggled through his first love without drawing upon the deep wells of Wentworth's knowledge.

”The woman I fell in love with was Fay. She was seventeen. I was nineteen.”

The room went round with Wentworth.

”Fay,” he said, in blank astonishment, ”Fay!” Then a glare of light broke in on him.

”Then it was she,” he stammered, ”not her maid, as that brute Alington said--it was she--she herself that----”

”It was her I went to see the night I was arrested. I was deeply in love with her.”

Michael paused a moment, and then added gently, ”She never cared for me. I did not see that clearly at the time, because I was blinded by my own pa.s.sion. I have seen it since.”

Wentworth made no movement.

”I decided to leave Rome. Fay wrote to me that I ought to go. I went to say good-bye to her in the garden the night the Marchese was murdered.

While I was in the garden, the murder was discovered and the place was surrounded, and I could not get away. I hid in Fay's boudoir. The Duke came in and explained to Fay what had happened. It was the first I knew of it. Then, when they searched the house and I saw that I must be discovered in another moment, I came out and gave myself up as the murderer, because I could not be found hiding in Fay's rooms at night.

It was the only thing to do.”

Fay took a long breath. What a simple explanation it seemed after all.

Why had she been so terrified? Wentworth could not blame her seriously now.

”I never tried to s.h.i.+eld the Marchesa,” Michael went on. ”That was her own idea. I only wanted to s.h.i.+eld Fay from being--misconstrued. The Duke understood. He saw me hiding behind the screen, and tried to save me. He told me so next day. The Duke was good to me from first to last.”

Wentworth turned a fierce, livid face towards his brother.

”Have I really got at the truth at last?” he said. ”How can I tell? The Duke could have told me, but he is dead. Did he really connive at your romantic pa.s.sion for his wife? If I may venture to offer an opinion, that part of the story is not quite so well thought out as the rest, though it is excessively modern. Anyhow he is dead. You tell me he saw you behind the screen in his wife's rooms at midnight, and felt no need of an explanation. How like an Italian. But he is dead. And you forced your love on another man's wife, though you own she did not return it, wormed yourself into her rooms at night, and then--_then_--yes, I begin to see a grain of truth among these heaps of lies--then when by an evil chance, an extraordinary stroke of bad luck, there was danger of your being discovered, then you persuaded her, the innocent, inexperienced creature whom you would have wronged if you could--you worked upon her feelings, you made her into your accomplice, you persuaded her to hide you.... You mean cur!... You only sneaked out of your hole when escape was absolutely impossible. And so the truth, or some garbled part of it, is choked out of you at last. No wonder you were silent all these years.

No wonder you would not speak. No wonder you let your poor dupe of a brother break his heart over your silence. Credulous fool that I have been from first to last. So help me G.o.d, I will never speak to you again.”

The violent, stammering voice ceased at last.

Fay s.h.i.+vered 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 gla.s.s 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.”