"You don't know what cruel words he said to me on his deathbed," she said. "I don't call it nobility and delicacy never to give me the least hint till the day he died that he knew why Michael was in prison." "Perhaps he hoped--hoped against hope--that----" Magdalen did not finish her sentence. She fixed her eyes on Fay's. A great love shone in them, and a great longing. Then, with a kind of withdrawal into herself, she went on. "Andrea was loyal to you to the last. He went away without a word to anyone except, it seems, to you. I always liked him, but I see now that I never did him justice. I did not know with his Italian hereditary distrust of woman's honour that he could have risen to such a height as that. Think of it, Fay. What grovelling and sordid suspicions he might have had of you, must inevitably have had of you and Michael if he had not followed a very noble instinct, that of entire trust in you both in the face of overwhelming proof to the contrary. Dear Fay, the proof was overwhelming." Fay was silent. "Just as we all believed in Michael's innocence of the murder, so Andrea believed in your innocence of a crime even greater, never faltered in his belief, and went to his grave without a word of doubt. Oh! Fay, Fay, do you suppose there are many men like that?" And Magdalen, who so seldom wept, suddenly burst into tears. Perhaps the thought forced itself through her mind, "If only once long ago I had met with one little shred of such tender faith!" "Andrea was better than I thought," Fay faltered. The admission made her uneasy. She wished he had not been better, that her previous view of him had not been disturbed. Magdalen's tears passed quickly. She glanced again at Fay through a veil of them, looking earnestly for something she did not find. "And Michael," she went on gently. "Dear, dear Michael. He gave himself for you, spent in one moment, not counting the cost, his life, his future, his good name--for your sake. And he goes on day by day, month by month, year in year out, enduring a living death without a word--for your sake. How long has Michael been in prison?" "Two years." Fay's voice was almost inaudible.