The next day, when Margaret met Michael in the garden square, she was not in her V.A.D.'s uniform. She told him that she was now her own mistress, so much so that she had that morning almost completed the purchase of her trousseau, and that she was free to stay out as long as she liked.

"But I want you," she said, "to return with me now to Clarges Street, to the Iretons. They are in town, and Hadassah says we can be married from their rooms to-morrow."

"They are the kindest people in the world," he said. "I felt sure you were making friends with Hadassah while I was in the desert. I often comforted myself with the fact that she would understand the whole situation and help you."

"She's a brick!" Margaret said. "She has been your ardent champion all the time."

They signalled to a taxi-cab to drive them to Clarges Street. It was necessary to do everything as quickly as they could; there was no time for leisurely walking or discussion.

Suddenly Margaret said, "Look! Quick, Mike, there! I saw that black figure again. She was sitting in the gardens when I arrived. She never used to be here—I feel convinced that she is following us. I believe one of these taxies is waiting for her." Her eyes indicated two taxis, which were waiting outside the gardens.

"Why do you think so?" Michael said. "What can any human being want with us? Why should our movements be interesting to any one but our two selves?" He laughed. "By Jove, they are interesting to us, though, aren't they?"

His eyes spoke of the morrow.

Margaret laughed, too. Michael's high spirits allowed her no time for reflection. He was carrying her off her feet in his old magnetic way. If he had only beckoned, she would have followed him to the ends of the earth; wings would have carried her, the air would have borne her. The dull realities of her life in London had vanished as if they had never been. The black figure, which had stepped into a cab and followed them, was forgotten.

* * * * * *

For something like half an hour Michael sat talking with Hadassah and Margaret. He had so much to tell them that he succeeded in telling them nothing connectedly or completely. He began a hundred different things and left most of them halfway through, to plunge headlong into another and entirely different subject. The things he wanted to say were tumbling over each other in his mind. The bewildering idea that he was going to be married the next day sent all his thoughts reeling.

Margaret was not the sort of girl to worry over a lot of superficial clothes for a ten days' honeymoon. What she needed she had got together in a couple of hours at Harrod's and one or two good shops in the West End.

They had made up their minds to spend their brief period of married life together at Glastonbury. It was not too far from London and Michael had once stayed in the historical old inn in that quiet city of Arthurian romance. In Egypt he had inspired Margaret with a desire to see Glastonbury in the spring time, when the maythorns were in bloom and the luscious meadows gay with flowers.

Like all soldiers, Michael was very silent upon the subject of his own personal experiences at the Front, although at intervals he would suddenly burst out with some dramatic incident in which he had taken part.

When Hadassah congratulated him on being offered a commission, he laughingly said, "Oh, I must accept it. It isn't fair to shirk it, though I'd rather remain as I am."

Margaret's heart stood still. She knew what he meant; she was not ignorant of the appalling death-rate of officers.

"You mean," Hadassah said, "that——"

She got no further, for Michael interrupted her. "I mean that if I'm capable of leading the men I ought to do it, but I dread the responsibility. That's why I never tried for a commission—I. didn't feel confident. But as the deaths amongst the officers are much greater than among the men, I can't remain a Tommy, can I?" He pulled his notebook out of his pocket. "Read that," he said. "That's the sort of thing that proves whether a man can lead or not."

Margaret and Hadassah read the newspaper cutting. It had been quoted from the Petit Journal.

"The British High Command relies more and more on the value of the individual soldier, and in this we see one of the main factors which will mean German defeat. Take the case of the heroism of a sergeant who, seeing his officer seriously wounded, himself assumed command of his company and led them victoriously to the third line. There he fell in his turn, but one of the men immediately took his place and completed the conquest of the objective. It is thanks to such acts that . . . has been seized, crossed and left behind."

When Hadassah and Margaret looked up, they met Michael's eyes. They were looking into the things beyond, things very far from Clarges Street.

"That was my sergeant," he said, "the finest fellow that ever wore shoe-leather!"

"And the Tommy," Hadassah said, "has he been promoted?"

Michael's eyes dropped; his tanned skin flushed slightly.

"Of course he'll have to take a commission if it's offered to him. He can't very well refuse. He has proved his ability to lead, poor chap! I expect he'd rather remain as he was. I know I would—it's a terrible responsibility, inspiring your men as well as teaching them, but one can't shelter oneself while others face greater risks."

Hadassah's quick brain read the truth, while Margaret merely lost herself in visualizing the dangers which Michael would so soon have to face. The twelve days would be gone so soon that they were scarcely worth counting.

From the war their sketchy talk returned again to Michael's experiences in the desert. He told them briefly about the saint, omitting the nature of his illness. He spoke so naturally and unguardedly about Millicent, and of his annoyance at her appearance and at her persistence in remaining, that if there had been any lingering doubt in Hadassah's mind upon the subject of his absolute loyalty to Margaret, it was completely dispersed.

When he was hurriedly telling them about the meeting of the saint and all about his knowledge of the hidden treasure, and how completely it tallied with the African's prophecies, he produced a tiny parcel from his pocket-book. He handed it to Margaret, who felt as if she had been listening to the last chapter of a long story from The Arabian Nights.

The little packet was made up of many folds of tissue-paper. With nervous fingers Margaret unwrapped it.

When the last piece was discarded and she saw that uncut jewel lying against the palm of her hand, she gave a cry of delight mixed with apprehension. Its beauty was unique, its colour as indescribable as the crimson of an afterglow in the Valley.

She looked almost pitifully at Michael. She wished that the world was a little less strange; some of the humdrum of her pantry-maid's existence would be almost welcome.

"The saint carried it in his ear," he said. "He took it from
Akhnaton's treasure."

"Have you had it with you at the Front all this time?" Hadassah said.
Margaret's emotion touched her.

"Yes. But now it is for you, Meg. I will have it made into anything you like, so that you can always wear it. It will be my wedding-present, a jewel of Akhnaton."

"No, no!" Margaret said quickly. "You must take it, it belongs to you.
You must always carry it about with you, Mike—it is your talisman."
She stopped, for Michael had closed her fingers over the stone.

"But I want you to have it," he said. "Let it be my wedding-gift—there is no time for the buying of presents."

"No," Margaret said. "Don't urge me, Mike. I shan't like it. Hadassah, don't you agree with me?—he must never part with it!" She smiled. "I should be terribly afraid if you did, I should think your luck had deserted you. Dearest, do take it—I believe Akhnaton meant you to keep it."

While she spoke she was longing to tell him of the hand which had written, of her message. The words almost passed her lips, but again she refrained, she obeyed her super-senses. She was convinced that Michael, when his blood was up, ran terrible risks, that he was reckless to the verge of folly. She had heard a letter read in the hospital which had been written to a mother about her son. His Colonel had said, "There are some men who will storm hell, there are others who will follow, and there are some who will lag behind. Your son belongs to the first of the three. What he needs to learn is caution and the value in this war of officers as able as himself." Margaret knew that Michael's rash nature needed no encouragement.

Hadassah championed Margaret. "I think you should keep it," she said to Michael, "and give it to Margaret after the war."

They all laughed, not unmirthfully, and yet not happily. "After the war!" they echoed in one voice. "Oh, that wonderful 'after'!"

"That promised land," Michael said. "Never mind—it's coming. The labour and travail of the war will bring forth Liberty. The pains of childbirth are soon forgotten—mothers know how soon, when the infant is at their breast."

Hadassah and Margaret looked at one another. Their eyes said many things; Margaret's were full of pride because Hadassah was hearing from his own lips that Michael was as whole-heartedly in the war as even Freddy could have desired.

She was still fingering and gazing at the wonderful stone. It seemed scarcely more strange to her that it had actually once belonged to the first king who had abhorred war, had once formed a part of his great royal treasury, than the fact that it had played its part in the mystical drama of her life in Egypt. As Michael talked, she questioned herself dreamily. Which was real—her humdrum pantry-maid existence in London, with her dreary walks through darkened streets, with now and then a Zeppelin scare to make her lonely bedroom seem more lonely? Or her life in the Valley, surrounded by the unearthly light of the Theban hills, her life of intellectual excitement and strange intimacy with things and people which the world had forgotten for thousands of years?

Michael felt her abstraction. He put his hand on the top of hers, which held the jewel, and pressed it.

"Come back," he said, laughing. "We're in Clarges Street, and we're going to be married to-morrow."

Meg looked up with startled eyes. "Are we?" she said.

"My dear, practical mystic, we are." He caught her round the waist and looked at Hadassah as he spoke. "You'll get her ready, won't you?"

She laughed. "Well, if you really mean it, I think we must all be up and doing."

"If!" Michael cried. "With this in my pocket, I should rather think I do mean it!" He brandished the special licence in the air. "Do you know what this means, Meg? It's your death-warrant. Are you resigned? Have you anything to confess? You've not been married to anyone else while I was away?"

Margaret shook her head. He had brought laughter back to her eyes. Just at that moment the ex-butler entered the room. As they all turned to look at him, he said:

"A person has called to see Miss Lampton."

"Who is it?" Margaret said. Her thoughts flew to her dressmaker, who was hurriedly making a light frock, bought ready-made, the proper length for her; in all other respects it fitted her.

"I don't know, miss. She has a box in her arms."

"Oh, I'll go," Margaret said. "I won't be long."

"Then, while you're gone, I'll make use of my time," Michael said as he rose to his feet. "I'll be back in ten minutes." He looked into Margaret's eyes. "Don't waste any time on dressmakers, Meg! Wear any old things,—you always look delightful."

"Catch me wasting time!" Margaret said. Her eyes assured him of her words. "Come upstairs for me in ten minutes—I'll be ready."

* * * * * *

A minute or two later Margaret returned to the sitting-room. Michael had left it. She was glad.

"Hadassah," she said, "listen. The most extraordinary thing has happened. Millicent Mervill is up in the drawing-room." Margaret was trembling with anger and nervousness.

"What? That woman here? How has she found you, how dare she come to see you?" Hadassah's voice was indignant, furious; her eyes flashed.

Margaret hurriedly explained to her how for the last two days she had felt that someone was following her, a dark figure, indistinctly dressed in black.

"She watched me in the square this morning. With her old cunning, she managed to get in by bringing some corset-boxes with her. Smith thought she had come to try something on. Isn't it like her?"

"Have you seen her?"

"No, not yet. She gave this note to Smith to give to me; he thought it was just a list of the things she had brought. I knew her handwriting the moment I saw it. Please read it."

Hadassah read the letter. It was very short.

"Dear Miss Lampton,

"If you will let me see you, I will tell you something which you ought to know. Please don't refuse. What I know may greatly help Mr. Amory.

"I only heard the other day that he never discovered the treasure. It is about that I want to see you.

"Yours,

"MILLICENT MERVILL."

When Hadassah had finished reading the note, she raised her eyes; they met Margaret's.

"You had better see her." Hadassah spoke quickly.

"Yes, I must, I suppose. I only wanted to know if you would mind—it is your house. I think it's such impertinence."

"Of course not. But what can she have to tell you?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, I do wish she hadn't come." Margaret sighed. "We were all so happy, and she is associated with everything that is hateful."

"Would you like me to come with you?"

"No, no." Margaret shook her head. "I am always best alone, but I dread the interview."

She paused for a moment or two before leaving the room. She was building up her courage, trying to subdue her nervousness. As she went out, Hadassah's eyes followed her.

"Poor girl!" she said to herself. "She has gone through so much. I thought she was in for a little time of peace and happiness. Poor Margaret!" She sighed. "And what is there still before her?" Hadassah's eyes looked into the future, "with this cruel, cruel war only beginning, for we are really just getting into it!"

She had been preparing to write some letters relating to Margaret's affairs, but for a moment or two she did not take up her pen. A little of the truth of what did actually happen to Michael on the battlefields of Flanders swam before her eyes; it was just the things which were happening and have happened to England's brave boys and men during these three wonderful years. The war was still in its infancy, but even then the vices of Germany were as old as her race and as terrible.

She pictured the truth—Michael's charmed life, his reckless courage, his magnetic power over his men. She foresaw it all. His temperament foretold it, his absolute belief in the triumph of righteousness.

While Hadassah was thinking these things, and thanking God in her heart that her husband, by reason of his special qualifications, had at once been placed in a post of great responsibility and one far removed from the danger-zone, Margaret had reached the drawing-room. She paused for a moment outside the door; she needed all her self-control.

As she entered the room, and before she had closed the door behind her, a slight figure, so shapelessly enveloped in black and closely-veiled that she could not distinguish any individuality, turned from the window, which opened into a small glass recess full of ferns and flowers.

Margaret did not hold out her hand; she could not. Nor did Millicent Mervill; she stood before Margaret, her head bent and her hands clasped in front of her, a slight bundle of drooping black, as mysterious as any veiled Egyptian woman.

"You have something to tell me?" Margaret said. In spite of her anger, the humility of the fragile figure brought a suggestion of pity into her voice. The radiant beauty whom she had steeled her nerves to meet had given place to this meek, formless penitent. "Please put up your veil—I can't see you." She knew that she could not trust the woman's words; she wished to watch her eyes while she spoke.

"I am wearing it," Millicent said, "because I can't bear you to look at me, to see how changed I am. Please let me keep it down, while I tell you all I know about Mr. Amory and the treasure."

"What has happened?" Margaret said. Millicent's voice was agonized.

"I had smallpox in Alexandria—it has left me hideous. Soon after I last saw you I sickened with it. I was very, very ill."

"Smallpox!" There was genuine sympathy in Margaret's voice. "Are you really disfigured? How dreadful that nowadays you should be!"

"Yes," Millicent said, lifelessly. "I have nothing left to live for now. My looks are gone. I was very ignorantly nursed; they were kind people, but hopelessly ignorant."

"Perhaps your looks will come back—give yourself time." Even as Margaret spoke, she wondered how she found it possible to talk to the woman in the way she was doing. Only five minutes ago she had hated her, hated her so intensely that she had had to exercise great control over her passions so that she should not lose her temper in her presence. Now she felt a sincere pity for her, the poor creature. Margaret's subconscious womanhood knew the reason. It was because she could afford, to be sorry for her, now that all rivalry between them was dead.

"I didn't come to tell you about myself," Millicent said. "It is nothing to you—you must be glad." She wrung her hands more tightly. "You are saying in your heart at this moment that I deserve it. So I do. I see things clearly now—I do deserve it. I brought it all on myself, everything. But I have suffered, you don't know how I have suffered."

"Sit down," Margaret said quietly, "and tell me all about it."

"No, no. You are only speaking like this because you feel you ought to, because I am now a thing to pity. You really hate me. I came to tell you that I never reached the hills, I never saw the hidden treasure, I never tried to find it." She paused. "And that your lover was never mine. He never desired any woman but you—he scorned me, ignored my advances."

"I know that," Margaret said hotly. A fire had kindled her calm eyes; it quickened her spirit.

"But it is none the less my duty to tell you. Your lover is too fine, too loyal—he won't stoop to tell you how I tempted him. He wouldn't blacken even my name. He has too much respect for womanhood."

"Then why tell me?" Margaret said. "I don't want to hear it. All that is past. We are going to be married tomorrow—Michael is home from the Front. We are perfectly happy—don't recall it all."

A cry rang through the room. Its tone of envy and passion convinced
Margaret that even in the worst human beings there is the divine spark.
It actually hurt her that her own joy should mean this agony to another
woman.

"You are going to be married," Millicent said, "to the finest lover and the truest gentleman I have ever known, or ever shall know, the finest in the world, I think."

"Yes," Margaret said. "He is all that, and more—at least, to me."

"Much more," Millicent said, "much more. And will you tell him that I never reached the hills, that I am not guilty of that one meanness?"

"Then who did?" Margaret said quickly.

"Oh, then you thought I did? You thought I robbed him of his discovery? Does he think so, too?" Her voice shook. Her curious sense of honour scorned the idea.

"No, no," Margaret said. Her love of truth made her speak frankly. "He wouldn't believe it. He is still convinced that you never went to the hills, that you are innocent."

"But you believed it?"

"Yes," Margaret's voice was stern. "Yes, I believed it for a time."

"I have nothing worth lying for now," Millicent said bitterly; "so what I tell you is perfectly true. I never reached the hills; I was too great a coward. I fled away in the night, as fast as I could, back to civilization."

"Then who anticipated Michael's discovery? It's absurd to assume that someone who knew nothing of his theory should have discovered it at the very same time, almost. Do you expect me to believe that?"

"My dragoman told me that one of my men absconded. He left me on the same night as I left Michael's camp. He must have discovered it; he must have heard the saint telling Michael all about it." She paused. "You know the whole story, don't you? All about the saint, and how his illness turned out to be smallpox?" She shuddered at the very mention of the saint.

"No," Margaret said. "I haven't heard about the smallpox. Was that how you got it?"

"Indirectly, yes, but it was my own fault. When I heard that he had got it, I stole away in the night, I left Michael to face it alone." She paused.

Margaret held her tongue. There was something so horrible about smallpox that, in spite of the woman's cowardly behaviour, she felt some sympathy for her.

"He had begged me to go before the saint turned up. I wouldn't. When the saint appeared he forgot almost everything else, and so for one whole day I remained confident in the belief that he had taken my presence for granted. And then," she shuddered, "he came to tell me that the holy man had smallpox."

"And you forgot your love?" Margaret said.

"It was swallowed up in fear, in anger. I was so furious at Michael's rash generosity. I had warned him that the man might be suffering from some contagious malady, but I never dreamed of smallpox."

"It was horrible!" Margaret said. "And Michael has never said a word about it."

"His charity is divine," Millicent said. "It is Christ-like, if you like."

"It is true charity, for it is love, love for everything which God has created."

"He is so happy that he can afford to love almost everything and everyone."

"He is happy because he loves them."

"I don't believe he has ever heard of hell," Millicent said. "His religion's all heaven and beauty and love."

"Hell!" exclaimed Margaret. "But surely," she paused, "surely we're not primitives, we don't need the fear of such impossible cruelties to keep us from doing wrong? His great saint, or reformer, Akhnaton, had no hell in his religion, and he lived, as you know, centuries before David. Even Akhnaton realized that human beings create their own hells. The other hell, of fire and brimstone, which terrorized the ignorant people into obedience and order, belongs to the same category as the crocodile god and the wicked cat-goddess Pasht, of Egypt. It was necessary in its day."

"You and Michael live on such a high plane!"

"Oh no, we don't. You know Michael is very human—that is why he is so understanding, so forgiving."

"He will never forgive me—that would be expecting too much. But I had to come and tell you all that I know about his treasure. I have only just heard—I saw it in the Egyptian monthly Archaeological Report—that Michael never had the glory of discovering the Akhnaton chambers in the hills."

"You didn't know that when I saw you in Cairo?"

"No, I never dreamed of it. If you had only told me that he hadn't, I should have explained, I should have told you about the man who absconded."

Margaret looked at her searchingly, but she could learn nothing more than the voice told her, for Millicent's veil was still covering her disfigured face.

"I never wished to rob him of the honour of the discovery. If I had known when I saw you, I should have cleared my name, at least, of that contemptible deed."

Margaret blushed. "I couldn't tell you," she said. "I was too unhappy, too angry. I didn't want you to know of our disappointment. I pretended that I had heard from Michael."

"You led me to suppose that he had discovered it."

"I know," Margaret said. "I didn't wish to add to your satisfaction by telling you of his disappointment. I was convinced that you knew, and that you had slipped off to the hills." She paused. "We were bluffing each other."

"I was incubating smallpox. I was wearing a blouse and skirt which had been packed with the clothes I wore in the desert. Probably it had come in touch with some infected thing."

"Were you very bad?" Margaret said. "Where have you been all this time?"

Millicent shivered. "I was just going to sail for England, but I was too ill when I reached Alexandria to go on board the boat—I had to stay behind. I have been hiding myself from the world ever since. Yes, I was dreadfully ill, and now. . . ." Her voice broke. "You don't know what I feel when I look at myself—my own face makes me sick."

"I am so sorry," Margaret said. "You were so beautiful, such a wonderful colour!"

"How kind of you to say so!" Millicent's voice left no doubt of her feeling of shame, although Margaret's nobility was beyond her understanding; it humbled her. "I came to you because I wanted to do what I can to undo what I have done. If Michael had known that my servant anticipated his discovery, it might have given him a clue as to where the treasure has gone. You do believe now that I never saw the jewels? I never dreamed of robbing him!" She paused. "In my poor way I loved him. I couldn't have done that—not that."

"And yet you were so horribly cruel! You knew a great deal about men. Michael is only human, and he is so ready to believe the best of everyone."

"Yes, I know. But I suppose I was born bad, born with feelings you don't understand. Michael did his best to help me; he tried to awaken something higher in me. I suppose you won't believe it, but he has—he has helped me; I am not quite what I was. While I was ill, when I thought I was dying, all that he had ever said to me came back to me with a new meaning. I determined that if I got well I would tell you everything—how wonderful his love for you is, how strong he can be—and it is not the strength of a man who does not feel."

"Oh, I know it," Margaret said. Her voice was resentful.

"But please let me tell you, even if you do know it. It is only right to Michael—I must exonerate him, even if you resent hearing me speak of his love for you. Let me make a clean breast of it, show you how ignorant he was of my plans for meeting him. He never was more surprised in his life."

"I didn't mean to resent it, but there are some things we never need telling, things which are better left unsaid. Michael needs no telling that you never stole the jewels, for instance, that you never tried to reach the hills."

"Stole the jewels! No, I never stole them. You thought that?" Horror was in Millicent's voice. "You thought I stole them for my personal use? To wear them?"

"It would not have been so cruel as to steal my lover, would it?"

"It would have been less difficult."

"You tried—oh, how you tried to steal him! How could—you?" A revulsion of feeling hardened Margaret. Her eyes showed it. She was visualizing Millicent in all her former beauty. Even without beauty, she knew how strongly her vitality would appeal to men. Despondent, in her drooping black shawls, Millicent was keenly alive still. Margaret had always felt her vitality; she knew that men felt it. It stirred them to conquest; it invited contest.

Millicent answered her truthfully. "Because I am bad, not good, and I loved him with the only kind of love I know. It swept aside all scruples. You can't judge—try to believe that—you can't begin to judge. I lived for conquest and men's admiration, and now I have lost both."

Margaret felt humbled to the dust. Her judgment had been so crude, so narrow. She realized that the woman before her left her far behind in the matter of vitality, passion and self-criticism. Her energy and vitality demanded an outlet, an object.

"Don't feel like that," she said gently. "Your looks will come back. Do let me see your face. It is early days yet—the marks will disappear, grow fainter. It is only one year—give it time, forget all about it in hard work, and while you are working. Nature will be working too."

"No, no!" Millicent cried. "Never! I am going to fly from my friends—I am going to hide myself."

Margaret had attempted to raise her thick veil, but Millicent refused to let her. Instead, she threw another thickness of it over her face. Her pride could not stand even Margaret's pity and comforting words.

"I am humbled enough as it is," she said. "Don't do that."

"I didn't want to humble you," Margaret said. "I only thought, and I do still think, that you are exaggerating the change in your appearance. One sees every little thing about oneself so clearly. I know how a wee spot seems like a Vesuvius when it is on one's nose. With smallpox the marks do get more and more invisible."

"No, my looks will never come back," Millicent said miserably. "And for a woman like me, when her looks are gone, what is there left?"

"Work," Margaret said. "The war will make you forget all about personal things—it will, really. Life is different now. If you will only take up some war-work—and I know you will, for every able-bodied woman in England is working at something; every superfluous woman has become a thing of value—life will be completely changed. There is only one idea, one aim for us all—to win the war. You must do your bit. It is just our 'bit' that keeps us sane, for without it we should have time to think. We women must not think, we must work."

"But what could I do?"

"Almost anything," Margaret said. "You know you could—you are so clever."

"Don't flatter, please," Millicent said. "How can you be so forgiving?"

"I suppose because I'm so happy. As soon as ever you can," Margaret said, "take up some work which necessitates using all your brain, all your energy. You will become so interested in what you are doing that you will forget your troubles. I had no time to grieve over mine when I was working in the hospital. At night I was so tired out that I went to sleep as soon as my head was on the pillow. The atmosphere of work, the awfulness of this war, makes personal things seem very trivial—one grows ashamed of them."

"You are trying to give me hope," Millicent said. "It is so big and kind of you, but honestly, I only came here to tell you about your lover, not to talk about my hideous self. What does it matter what I do? You were always a worker—I was not."

"Well, you have told me about Michael, and now I can at least try to help you. I have seen the effect of almost a year of the war on the idle women of England. It is wonderful! And we used to be called superfluous!" Margaret laughed proudly.

"You believe me? You know that I am not lying? that I never reached the hills? that I never knew that Michael had not discovered the treasure?" Millicent had gone back to the original object of her visit. What Margaret had advised seemed to her impossible.

As she said the last words, the door opened and Michael entered the room. He had heard Millicent's voice. His eyes were fixed on Margaret. The tableau created by his unexpected entrance was tense, painful.

Millicent turned her head away and hid her face in her hands. Her first thought was that he must not see her face. She flung herself down on the sofa.

Margaret became deadly pale, but remained motionless. Michael looked from her to Millicent with an expression of horrified surprise on his face. He had expected to see her in all her perfection of toilet and looks, her shining head, the "golden lady," instead of which a bundle of crÊpe, a mere armful, something soft and black, lay face downwards on the sofa before him.

"What are you doing here?" he said sternly. "Haven't we seen the last of you yet?"

Margaret put up her hands as if to ward off his words. Her own happiness had made her feel more pity than anger for the miserable woman, who for probably the first time in her life was trying to act honourably and courageously. The security of love made her wondrous kind.

"What has she come for?" Michael demanded. But for his sunburn, his face would have been as white as Margaret's own. The sight of Millicent's cowering figure brought back to him, with the quickness of light, the evening in the desert when he had flung her from him in his agony of temptation.

"She came to give us some information, Mike. Tell him, Millicent, why you have come."

Millicent took no notice of Margaret's words. She was crouching on the sofa, her face still buried in her hands.

"No, no," she moaned, when Margaret again urged her to speak. "I only wanted to tell you. Ask him to go away—do, please, beg him to go. If he wants you I will disappear and never come back again. I have said all I have to say."

"I am going to stay here," Michael said, "until I hear what you came to say. Was it necessary to come?" He looked to Margaret for his answer.

"It was better," Margaret said. "She never reached the hills, she never saw the treasure."

Michael started. "Go on," he said. "That is not all—she need not have come to tell us that. I never accused her; I never believed it. I thought that after all she did do, she would have had shame enough to stay away."

Millicent's body quivered. His words lashed her.

"One of her servants ran away—he left her the same night as she left your camp," Margaret said. Again Michael saw the black figure shiver as Margaret spoke of her cowardly act. The very mention of it brought to both their eyes a vivid picture of the surroundings which had witnessed their last meeting. Millicent knew that Michael was seeing it as clearly as though they had been standing together under the golden stars, the tents dotted about on the pale night sands. She could hear the sick man reciting suras from the Koran in sonorous tones.

"And she thinks he found the treasure?" Michael said the words absently, as though his mind was occupied with distant visions.

"Yes—he was a likely character to do the deed."

"Does she know anything about him—where he went to?"

"No, Mike, but I do." Margaret spoke gently. "Millicent has been very ill. She only heard yesterday that the Government had anticipated your discovery. She came to try and help you. She is in trouble." Margaret's voice told Michael more than her words.

"She scarcely deserves your pity," he said. "Only her own heart knows how she has tricked us both . . . there are some things one cannot forgive . . . Millicent knows."

The black figure slipped from the couch to the floor. "Look, I will kneel at your Margaret's feet," she said in tones of abject shame. "Tell her everything. Tell her what a beast she has been kind to. She ought to know." She raised her head. "I think I shall enjoy the agony—anything but this living death."

She pressed her hands on Margaret's feet. "I am far worse than you knew! You are not made like me, you won't even understand if he tells you the things I did."

"I don't wish to speak of it to Margaret," Michael said. "Get up. I have seen your penitence once too often to believe in it now—get up."

"Oh," Millicent moaned, "I know, I know! You think this is just another bit of the old Millicent. It isn't—it is true."

"Get up," Margaret said kindly. "I was only trying to be kind because . . . well, perhaps it is because I am so happy myself that I can afford to forgive you. Don't kneel like that . . . I hate to see you. Michael knows how little I deserve it . . . I have hated you with all my heart and soul, I have longed for my revenge."

"My God!" Michael said quickly, "I hate to see the little coward near you! How dared you come? Get up!" he said again. "And clear out! I thought we had finished with you for ever!"

Millicent dragged herself to her feet. She stood before him, a slender, nun-like figure; one of the black shawls which enveloped her had fallen to the floor.

"Go on, say all you feel—I deserve it, every word of it! I left you to your fate when you were in danger, I fled from the camp with but one idea in my head—my own safety, my desire to get as far as I could from the infection of smallpox. I carried the hateful disease with me; I am so disfigured that you must never see me. Never!" Her words ended in a low cry of self-pity.

"My God!" Michael said. "Are you speaking the truth! Did you get smallpox?" He knew that the blame was partly his.

"Yes, but don't look at me. I can't bear it. Anything but that, oh not that!" Michael had stooped to raise her a veil.

His eyes met Margaret's. "Poor soul!" he said. "Poor little soul!"

"Yes, fate has punished me," Millicent said. "You can do no more."

Michael groaned. "We have not talked of it all yet, Margaret," he said miserably, "the horror of the smallpox."

"Millicent has told me about it, Michael." She tried to smile. "It is a thing of the past. What good will talking do? We are happy again."

Millicent turned to Michael. "I have told her a very little," she said. "And now I have something which I must tell you. When I saw her in Cairo I told her that I had been with you, I told her that you would write to me, I inferred that you and I were lovers."

Michael bent his head. He was innocent of any deed of unfaithfulness, but what of his desires? What of the night when Margaret's presence had saved him? He wondered if she was conscious of the part she had played in his renunciation.

"And you still trusted me?" Michael's words were so full of gratitude and wonder that Margaret's veins were flooded with happiness. How greatly he had been tempted!

"I remembered my promise. More than once it seemed to me that I succeeded in being very near you."

Her eyes questioned him. He understood; his eyes answered her.

"I told her that I had been with you," Millicent said, "but not for how long. She never dreamed that my coming was quite unknown to you, that I was with you for so short a time, that you hated my presence in the camp. How well she knew you!"

Margaret turned to Michael. "Yes, I knew him," she said. "Thank God, I knew him! We learnt to know each other in the Valley, and I think I realized the situation better than you thought I did."

"But I must tell you, I must show you even more than you dream of how true and loyal he has been."

"No, no, please don't," Margaret said. "Michael has told me all I want to know." She was sorry for Michael's embarrassment; he writhed under the whole thing.

Millicent paid no attention to her words. She repeated the story for Margaret's benefit. Michael turned away impatiently. He had meant to tell Margaret all the details of his life in the desert when they were married and alone together.

"As I told you," Millicent said, "I met him in the desert. I had found out where he was going to. He was furiously angry . . . he wanted me to go back. I stayed against his wishes. The saint turning up the same day as I did made him forget me. I often tried to win him from you . . . and I thought I was succeeding. The only reason he didn't turn me out of the camp was because of my equipment and food—they were good for the holy man, who was ill. He was sickening with the smallpox, only we didn't know it. Michael took him into his camp. I told you about that. We didn't know what was the matter with him, but Michael behaved like an angel to the lunatic. When he discovered that he had smallpox, I implored him to leave him. When he wouldn't, I fled. That very night I left him alone, even though I had told him that I loved him—I had offered myself to him. I took all my luxuries with me. I was mad . . . furiously angry. He had taken the sick man in against all my entreaties; he had scorned my love. The next morning Hassan told me that one of my men had deserted, left our camp at dawn."

"Stop, that's enough!" Michael cried. "Stop it!" Every word had lashed his nerves and brought back to his memory his own struggles, his own weakness.

"I fled," Millicent went on, not heeding his interruption. "I spent some weeks in Upper Egypt. I thought I had escaped the horrible disease. . . . I thought Hassan had taken every precaution. He sent some of my boxes straight on to Cairo; I opened them the night I saw you. They must have carried the infection—that is how I got smallpox. It lay in wait for me." She paused, breathless, and then went on excitedly: "I know nothing about the treasure. I am absolutely innocent in that one respect. I can tell you nothing more, nothing."

As Millicent ceased speaking, Michael took up her story.

"Margaret," he said, "some days after she left us the saint died. When he was buried, we moved on." As he spoke, he visualized the desert burial. "We journeyed to the hills. On our way we passed through a subterranean village—a terrible place, of flies and filth! The Omdeh of the village, a fine old gentleman, told us of the growing unrest among the desert tribes—German work, of course; we are seeing the fruit of it now. I paid no heed to him; I felt too ill, too tired. I only cared about reaching the hills. When we did reach them, we found that a camp was already established. Information had been given to the Government." He heaved a deep sigh. "The thing was out of my hands. I suppose the shock finished me for the time being, for when I left the excavation-camp I became ill, so ill that Abdul had to take me as quickly as he could to the Omdeh's house near the subterranean village. I stayed there until late on in May." He stopped abruptly.

"The rest won't bear speaking about. What made things so much worse, Meg, was thinking about what you would be suffering, what Freddy would be saying." His eyes sought Margaret's. "It is best to forget, it is wiser to think of tomorrow."

"Yes, let us forget all about it," Margaret said. Michael's expression frightened her. As a soldier he had enough to bear without raking up what was past.

"Abdul became as dear to me as a brother," Michael said quietly. "His devotion was wonderful! We are not of the same faith"—he was speaking to himself—"but our God is the same God, our love for Him the same. Abdul knew that."

"And your illness?" Millicent said. "Was it smallpox?"

"No, no—none of my camp caught it. It was enteric fever. I suppose I was worn out, both mentally and physically. The disappointment about the treasure was the last straw, it was so cruel. I am able to accept it now, it doesn't hurt me any longer. The war has done that; the war is like concentrated time—it obliterates and wipes out, and even heals."

"But you discovered it, Michael! You were the real discoverer. If it hadn't been for you, and for your special knowledge, the man who stole it, who gave the information, would never have found it. And, after all, as Michael Ireton says, that is the main point of interest." Margaret's eyes glowed with pride. "And haven't you heard the sequel to that tragedy?—the finding of some ancient jewels which the thief must have dropped in the desert, not so very far from the hill-chambers?"

As Michael had not heard that the gems had been found, Margaret told him the story which Hadassah had written to her.

"They prove, Mike, what after all is to us the most important fact in the whole affair—that you were right, that all the information given you by the seer was correct."

Margaret did not include her vision of Akhnaton in Millicent's presence; it was always a sacred subject between them.

"That is what Abdul said, and I know it is true. But who can prove it? To the disbelieving no one can prove that there was any treasure, any gold or great wealth of jewels." He looked into Margaret's eyes. He said plainly, "Freddy died unconvinced on that point."

Margaret understood. She had so often wished that Freddy could have known all that had transpired since his death.

"I will spend all my money and wits on finding the wretch," Millicent said humbly. "I will hunt this treasure to earth. If there were jewels, they shall be found. I will never stop until I have traced them, never! That will give me some interest in life—if you will let me do it, that is to say."

"The jewels will all be cut by this time, the gold will be melted. No one will be able to recognize them."

"You can't find the thief," Margaret said. "He died of smallpox—Mr. Ireton heard that from the Government authorities. They set detectives on his track, and discovered his whereabouts, but he was unconscious. They think that he buried the treasure, that it is again lost to the world. It is still waiting for you, Mike."

"I know that there were many more jewels where the crimson amethyst came from," Michael said, "whether they are ever found again or not." He was thinking of the words of his old friend in el-Azhar. If he came out of the war alive, he might again hope to discover them.

"I can do something else," Millicent spoke pleadingly. "Say you will let me! I am rich—my money is no good to me."

Michael looked at her for an explanation. His eyes were cold.

"I can spend some of my money in paying the expenses of the digging, for excavating on the site. The war will put a stop to all excavating work in Egypt and the Holy Land so far as England is concerned, but if I give sufficient money, you can employ the best Egyptologists in America, so that the work can go on this autumn. You will not have to wait until the war is over before you find out all there is to be known on the subject."

"The papyri will prove a great deal," Michael said; "they found papyri." Millicent's words scarcely penetrated to his brain. He was obsessed with the idea that the Egyptologists suspected that the treasure was again buried. If it was, how exactly it all tallied with the African's vision!

"I believe that there is very little excavating work to be done," Margaret said. "I have had so little time with Hadassah that I have not even referred to the subject." She smiled, surprised at the fact when it was brought before her. "But in a letter she told me that the chambers were singularly perfect. They are cut in the virgin rock; they are not extensive, but nothing had been destroyed. One of the chambers was evidently intended for a royal treasury."

"In Flanders," Michael said, "life is very real." He turned to the window as he spoke; Margaret's news had troubled him. "Germany has made all our lives horribly real. What you have told me seems to belong to another state of our existence." His eyes were far away from either Margaret or Millicent; they were with his comrades in the trenches. "When I was knee-deep in mud in the trenches I often thought that our hut-home in the silent Valley was a dream, a beautiful dream, one of those dreams we can never forget, however long we live, but only a dream."

He drew himself up. "We have been brought back to firm earth. Our apprenticeship on this side isn't finished, Meg. We aren't ready to fully understand the things beyond. While we are on this earth, I believe it is wiser to rest content with the things that are here." He smiled. "Perhaps Freddy is right—it is wiser to walk on our two feet."

"Perhaps it is," Margaret said wistfully. "But thank God I trusted to the progress of one person who occasionally walks on his head."

While Michael's back was turned to the door, and Margaret was looking at him with eyes of sympathy, and with the knowledge in her heart that he was living over again scenes and actions in Flanders which left her far behind him, Millicent had slipped from the room. With her white corset-boxes in her arms she fled downstairs and silently opened the front door. As silently it shut behind her.

For a moment she paused, before descending the steps. London was there in front of her, London with its luxuries and its sins, which not even the strength of Germany or the sacrifice of young lives could obliterate. The spring made no call to her; the sunshine mocked her because of her empty world.

* * * * * *

When Michael and Margaret discovered that she was gone, they stood for a little while locked in each other's arms. As Margaret raised her head from Michael's breast, he bent his head and kissed her lips.

"Dearest," he said, "you and I can afford to forgive her, poor lonely little soul!"

"I can forgive anybody anything, Mike."

"Even the Kaiser, beloved woman?"

Margaret shivered. "Don't let's think of him—not for eleven days, at least."

"We shall be able to be sorry for even him some day," he said. His confident tones delighted her, for his mention of the war had brought the angel with the flaming sword into her Eden.

"You really think so, Mike? Your inner self feels it? Sometimes I almost despair—they are so strong, so clever."

"I do believe it," he said. "You foolish woman, of course I believe it. The day may be a long way off, but it is coming, just the same. The triumph of light over darkness, Meg, the old, old fight—we shall see the resurrection of Osiris and the defeat of Set all over again. The sun of righteousness will stream over the world when the devil of militarism is crushed for ever."

He kissed her again rapturously. Their time together was so short; it left them little opportunity for lengthy talks on any subject. The way in which Michael broke off in the middle of his sentences to make love to her, and question her eagerly and impetuously, suggested the hosts that disturbed his mind. He wanted to tell her all about the old African's idea of the meaning of the war, and about his visualizing of the treasure for the second time; but he wanted still more her lips and her own exquisite assurances of her love for him, the eternal subject, which neither age nor war can affect. The one important fact which could not wait was that tomorrow she was to be his wife, and if he did not let her return to her preparations, there was the possibility that some hitch a might occur. So they went back to Hadassah and told her all that had happened.

For everyone concerned the rest of that day flew on wings. Each hour passed like a flash. Bed-time came, and Margaret scarcely seemed to have achieved half or quarter of the things she had meant to do.

A telegram had arrived, in answer to hers, from the aunt with whom she had lived as a child and young girl. The bride-elect had felt just a little worried about her aunt; she had written her a letter which she would receive on her wedding morning. In it Margaret had told her all about her friendship with Michael while she was living with Freddy in Egypt, and of Freddy's friendship with him, which was of a much longer duration. Also, she took pains to assure her aunt that, as far as pedigree was concerned, he had the blood of Irish kings in his veins.