Those who love us and have kept so tenderly for years the secret of our egotism or our false humility or our meanness, how can they endure to hear us unconsciously proclaim to the world what only Love may safely know concerning us?
Magdalen heard, till her heart ached to hear them, all the endless bolstered-up reasons why Fay was not responsible for Michael's fate.

She heard all about the real murderer not confessing.

She heard much that Fay would have died rather than admit.

Gradually she realised that it was misery that had driven Fay to a partial confession, not as yet repentance, not the desire to save Michael.

Misery starves us out of our prisons sometimes, tortures us into opening the doors of our cells bolted from within, but as a rule we make a long weary business of leaving our cells when only misery urges us forth.