Prisoners | Page 7

and to
the worldly as the only real life, the only path. But if we disbelieve in it,
and framing our lives on other lines become voluntarily bedridden into

selfishness and luxury, can we--when that in which we have not
believed comes to pass--can we suddenly rise and follow Love up his
mountain passes? We try to rise when he calls us from our sick beds.
We even go feverishly a little way with him. But unless we have learnt
the beginnings of courage and self-surrender before we set out, we
seem to turn giddy, and lose our footing. Certain precipices there are
where only the pure and strong in heart may pass, at the foot of which
are the piled bones of many passionate pilgrims.
Were Fay's delicate little bones, so subtly covered in soft white flesh, to
be added to that putrefying heap? But can we blame anyone, be they
who they may, placed howsoever they may be, who when first they
undergo a real emotion try however feebly to rise to meet it?
Fay was not wholly wise, not wholly sincere, but she made an attempt
to meet it. It was not to be expected that the attempt would be quite
wise or quite sincere either. Still it was the best she could do. She
would sacrifice herself for love. She would go away with Michael. No
one would ever speak to her again, but she did not care.
Involuntarily she unclasped a diamond Saint-Esprit from her throat
which the duke had given her, and laid it on her writing-table. She
should never wear it again. She no longer had the right to wear it. It
was a unique jewel. But what did she care for jewels now! They had
served to pass the time in the sort of waking dream in which she had
lived till Michael came. But she was awake now. She looked at herself
in the glass long and fixedly. Yes, she was beautiful. How dreadful it
must be for plain women when they loved! They must know that men
could not really care for them. They might, of course, respect and
esteem them, and wish in a lukewarm way to marry them, but they
could never really love them. She, Fay, carried with her the talisman.
A horrible doubt seized her, just when she was becoming calm.
Supposing Michael would not! Oh! but he would if he cared as she did.
The sacrifice was all on the woman's side. No one thought much the
worse of men when they did these things. And Michael was so good, so
honourable that he would certainly never desert her. They would
become legal husband and wife directly Andrea divorced her.

From underneath these matted commonplaces, Fay's muffled
conscience strove to reach her with its weak voice.
"Stop, stop!" it said. "You will injure him. You will tie a noose round
his neck. You will spoil his life. And Andrea! He has been kind in a
way. And your marriage vows! And your own people at home! And
Magdalen, the sister who loves you. Remember her! Stop, stop! Let
Michael go. You were obliged to relinquish him once. Let him go again
now."
Fay believed she went through a second conflict. Perhaps there lurked
at the back of her mind the image of Michael's set face--set away from
her; and that image helped her at last to say to herself, "Yes. It is right.
I will let him go."
But did she really mean it? For while she said over and over again,
"Yes, yes; we must part," she decided that it was necessary to see him
just once again, to bid him a last farewell, to strengthen him to live
without her. She could not reason it out, but she knew that it was
absolutely essential to the welfare of both that they should see each
other just once more before they parted--for ever. The parting no longer
loomed so awful in her mind if there was to be a meeting before it took
place. She almost forgot it directly her mind could find a staying point
on the thought of that one last sacred interview, of all she should say, of
all they would both feel.
But how to see him! He had said he would not come back. He left
Rome in a few days. She should see him officially on Thursday, when
he was in attendance on his chief. But what was the use of that? He
would hardly exchange a word with her. She might decide to see him
alone; but what if he refused to see her? Instinctively Fay knew that he
would so refuse.
"We must part." Just so. But how to hold him? How to draw him to her
just