"He never cared for me," continued Fay, slipping off the bed, and kneeling down before the fire. "It's a dreadful thing to marry a man who does not really care. I sometimes think men can't care. They are too selfish. They don't know what love is. I was very young. I did not know anything about life. He was kind, but he never understood me." Magdalen's eyes filled with tears. In the room at the end of the passage she had listened to her mother's faint voice in nights of wakeful weakness speaking of her unhappy marriage. Did all women who failed to love deep enough say the same things? And as Magdalen had listened in silence then so she listened in silence now. "He did not trust me. And then I had no children, and he was dreadfully disappointed. And he kept things to himself. There was no real confidence between us, as there ought to be between husband and wife, those whom God has joined together. Andrea never seemed to remember that. And gradually his conduct had its natural effect. I grew not to care for him, and--he brought it on himself--I'm not excusing myself, Magdalen--I see now that I was to blame too--I ended by caring for someone else--someone who _did_ love me, who always had since we were boy and girl together." "Not Michael!" "Yes. Michael. And when he came out to Rome it began all over again. It never would have done if Andrea had been a good husband. I did my best. I tried to stave it off, but I was too miserable and lonely and I cared at last. And he was madly in love with me. He worshipped me." Fay paused. She was looking earnestly into her recollections. She was so far withholding nothing. As she knelt before the fire making her confession Magdalen saw that according to her lights she was speaking the whole truth and nothing but the truth. "Of course he found it out at last and--and we agreed to part. We decided that he must leave Rome. He wished to see me once to say good-bye. Was it _very_ wrong of me to let him come once,--just once?" "It was perhaps natural. And after Michael had said good-bye why did not he leave Rome?" "He was arrested the same night," faltered Fay. "I said good-bye to him in the garden, and then the garden was surrounded because they were looking for the murderer of the Marchese, and Michael could not get out. And he was afraid of being seen for fear of compromising me. So he hid behind the screen in my room. And then--you know the rest--the police came in and searched my rooms, and Michael came out and confessed to the murder, and said I had let him hide in my room. It was the only thing to do to save my reputation, and he did it." "And what did you say?" "Nothing. What could I say? Besides, I was too faint to speak." "And later on when you were not too faint?" "I never said anything later on either." Fay's voice had become almost inaudible. "I hoped the real murderer would confess." "But when he did not confess?"