She fell in love with him during the process.
The day came, an evil day for Michael, when he could no longer doubt it, when he was not permitted to remain in doubt.

Who shall say what waves of boundless devotion, what passionate impulses of protection, of compassion, of intense longing to shield her from the fire which had devastated his own youth, passed in succession over him as he looked at the delicate little creature who was to him the only real woman in the world--all the rest were counterfeits--and who now, as he believed, loved him as he had long loved her.
Michael was one of the few men who bear through life the common masculine burden of a profound ignorance of women, coupled with an undeviating loyalty towards them.

He supposed she was suffering as he had suffered, that it was with her now beside the fountain, under the ilexes of her Italian garden, as it had been with him during these five intolerable years.
How Fay wept! What a passion of tears, till her small flower-like face was bereft of all beauty, of everything except a hideous contraction of grief! He stood near her, not touching her, in anguish far deeper than hers.

At last he took her clenched hand in his.
"Do not grieve so," he said brokenly.

"It is not our fault.