"Can a man who has grown grey looking at himself in the glass, and recording his own microscopic experiences in a diary, can such a man _forgive_?" said the Bishop. "Forgiveness is tough work. It needs knowledge of human nature. It needs humility. I forgave somebody once long ago. And it nearly was the death of me. I've never been the same man since." "Wentworth will have his chance," said Michael. "It's about all we can do for him." "We all know he says he can, but then he says such a lot of things. He dares to say he loves his fellow men. But I've never yet found that assertion coincide with any real _working_ regard for them. There are certain things which those who care for others never say, and that is one of them. The egoist on the contrary is always asserting of himself what he ought in common decency to leave others to say of him,--only they never do. Wentworth actually told me not so long ago that he was intent on the service of others. I told him it was for those others to mention that interesting fact, and that nobody had lied about him to that extent so far in my diocese." "He always says that there is perfect confidence between us," said Michael. "I've heard him say so ever since I can remember, and I've heard him tell people that I always brought him my boyish troubles. But I never did, even as a boy, even when I got into a scrape at Eton. My tutor stood by me in that. Wentworth never could endure him. He said he was such a snob. But snob or not, he was a firm friend to me. And I never told him even at the first of my love for Fay. I somehow could not. You simply can't tell Wentworth things. But he has got it into his head that I always have, and that this is the first time I have kept anything from him. If I had only Fay's leave to tell him! It is the only thing to do." The door opened, and to the astonishment of both men, Fay and Magdalen came in. Fay looked as exhausted, as hopeless, as she had done three months ago when Magdalen had brought her to make her confession to the Bishop in this very room. She evidently remembered it. She turned her lustreless eyes on him and said, "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.