In the Valley where the Pharaohs sleep, below the smiling hills, the heat and the power of the sun were becoming an actual danger. The best working hours were those which began at dawn and terminated at eleven o'clock.

In the early summer, for Egypt knows no spring, as it knows no twilight, the heat compels even the natives to abandon work during the hottest hours of the day. The sun is at its most dangerous point in the sky at three o'clock in the afternoon; at that hour, as the season advances, little exposed work can be done.

One particularly hot afternoon Margaret was waiting for her brother to come to tea. She had always contrived to keep their sitting-room fresh and cool by closing its windows and drawing down wet blinds before the sun got a chance of entering it. The windows were kept open all night. She had tried almost every possible device—and had been very successful—for excluding "the brightness of Aton" from their home.

If the windows were left open after sunrise, an army of flies too great to combat would invade the room, and ten minutes of sunshine would warm the room for the whole day. If the sun never penetrated it and the windows were kept open during the chilly hours of the night, it was always an agreeable and refreshing place to enter after a long spell in the blinding sunlight. It was so essential for Freddy's health that he should have a cool, dark room to rest in, that Margaret gave the subject her best care and unremitting attention.

The dryness of the air in Upper Egypt can hardly be imagined by those who have not experienced it.

Margaret had heard the overseer's whistle; she knew that work was suspended for some hours. A beautiful sense of order and neatness had been developed out of the mess of debris and broken rocks which had disfigured the site of the tomb, and some new chambers had been cleared and examined.

When Freddy appeared, Margaret asked him a few questions about his work. Had he heard from the experts who were examining the skull and bones of the mummy? Freddy answered her absently and half-heartedly.

"No, not yet—no report has come. Let's have some tea, first, before we talk—my throat's bone dry."

Meg was conscious of some constraint, some anxiety in his manner. Freddy's silence could be very eloquent. She gave him his tea and administered to his wants. For some days he had had a little touch of diarrhoea, the result of a slight cold caught during one of the quick falls of temperature which take place in Upper Egypt. Margaret knew that in Egypt diarrhoea must never be neglected, for it too often leads to dysentery. She had made her brother take the proper remedies, a gentle aperient followed by concentrated tincture of camphor, and she had been very careful not to allow him to eat any fatty food or fruit or meat.

Freddy did not take kindly to a diet of arrowroot or rice boiled in milk, adulterated with water. This afternoon he looked tired and out of spirits. Meg wondered if the tiresome complaint had been troubling him again.

As she handed him the bread and butter she said, "Should you eat butter, Freddy! Tell me the truth—are you not feeling so well to-day? Has there been any return of the trouble?"

Freddy looked at her in astonishment. His thoughts were so far removed from his own health. If abstaining from the flesh of animals and the eating of fruit would ease his anxiety, he felt that for the rest of his life, he would never ask for any other food than watery arrowroot.

"I'm perfectly all right. That trouble's quite gone—your care has done the trick. Thanks awfully."

"Then what is it, Freddy?" Meg laid her hand on his arm, her eyes held his. If he attempted to deny the fact that there was something on his mind, she knew that he knew that his eyes could not hide it from her.

"I am bothered about something, Meg. There's an ugly report going about—I've made up my mind to tell you."

"Report about whom? You?" Meg's eyes showed battle. The Lampton fighting instinct was roused.

"No, I wish it was about me—I'd soon settle it!" Freddy's eyes were still searched by his sister's.

"It's about Michael," she said. She rose from her seat. "I have expected it. I knew it was coming."

"What?" Freddy looked at her in amazement. "You expected it?"

"I felt there was some trouble. I don't know what—I can't even guess—but I felt it was coming." She stood in front of her brother. "Out with it, old boy! Tell me the worst at once. Is he dying? Has he been murdered? I can bear anything except suspense."

"It's something uglier than death, Meg."

"Treachery?"

"Yes, treachery." Freddy thought that Meg meant treachery on her lover's part. She had thought of treachery from enemies. Had some one forestalled Michael with the treasure?

He paused. What could he tell her next?

"Oh, go on!" Meg cried. "For heaven's sake, don't spare me! A woman can stand almost anything, Freddy, anything but uncertainty."

"Can she stand unfaithfulness, Meg, dishonour?" Freddy's eyes dropped. He could not inflict upon himself the pain which Meg's trusting eyes would cause him.

A cry rang through the room. "No, not that, not that! Go on, go on—what more?" As she spoke, she threw up her head. "It's a lie, Freddy, a hideous lie!"

"I'm afraid there must be some truth in the story, Meg." Freddy's voice was terrible. It conveyed his reluctant, yet absolute, belief that her lover was guilty. Before he had finished speaking, another cry rang through the room. It startled Freddy with its intensity, its rage and independence.

"I tell you it's a lie! It's not true! And what's more, until I hear it from his own lips, I will never believe a word of the scandal."

"Poor old chum!" Freddy tried to comfort her with the assurance of his sympathy.

Meg flashed round upon him. "Don't pity me! Don't dare to pity me!
It's all the basest treachery. I'll have no pity. I don't need it!"

Freddy was silent. It was like Meg not to cry or collapse, as most girls would have done. She was fighting splendidly for her man, whose honour was dearer to her than his life. He wished that Michael could have been there to see her, unworthy though he apparently was of such unwavering loyalty.

"What is this report?" she asked. Her cheeks were as white as a blanched almond; her eyes splendidly alight. The excitement of battle vitalized her. Margaret was beautiful in her wrath.

"I have heard it from several sources that Millicent Mervill joined Michael in the desert, that she now forms part of his camp, that she is, in fact, your lover's mistress. I can't have it, chum."

"It's a lie! How can you believe it? A hideous, abominable lie! It's contemptible of you to listen to it, to give it a moment's consideration." She shivered. "Oh, these filthy native tongues!"

"I wish I could think so, Meg."

Meg swung round on him and for a moment he thought she was going to strike him.

"Damn you!" She flashed out the words just as he himself would have said them. "How dare you say so? He is your friend, he has been closer to you than a brother! He has no one to defend his name! You know that he would kill any man who attempted to slander you behind your back!"

Freddy did not resent her attack. She had done just what he would have done to any man who had reported any slander against her fair name.

"I know it's awfully hard for you to believe it."

"I don't believe it, Freddy, nor do you!"

"I told you I wished I didn't. The evidence is too clear."

"You haven't told me that you believe it is true. You can't get beyond the fact that there's ugly gossip going round and that I'm in love with him. If you thought this was your dying oath, that heaven depended upon the truth of your statement, can you say that in your soul you believe that Michael has taken this woman with him, that he is utterly treacherous and faithless? Does your unconquerable voice condemn him?"

Freddy thought for a moment. "It looks very black, Meg. The evidence is very convincing."

"Confound the evidence!" she said. "That is not an answer. I asked you, does your inner self, your super-man, believe absolutely in his guilt?" Meg was staring at him with hard, questioning eyes; all trace of her love for him had been driven out.

"Well no, if you put it like that, perhaps not. But I can't have your name connected with these stories."

"My name?" she cried. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that our women have married straight, clean, honourable men."

"The Lamptons again!" she said. "Am I never to be free from tradition? Just because I'm a Lampton, I am to behave in a mean, disloyal manner to the man I swore to trust? Do you suppose I'm going to? If you do, you're much mistaken. In my own heart I've been Michael's wife for weeks and weeks, so you needn't imagine I'm going to divorce him."

"But I do, Meg." Freddy rose from the table. "Now, look here," he said, "try to speak dispassionately. How can I, as your sole male guardian, countenance an engagement between you and Michael while there is only too much ground for belief that this story is true? I've not only heard it from the natives."

"You're wholly without reason. You just said you didn't believe it!"
The words flashed from Meg's lips like the fire from a gun.

"I find it hard to believe. One always wants to hear two sides of a story. If Michael can swear that it is not true——"

"There is only one side to this story—that it is a lie."

"Then why has this report been spread about? There is always some fire where there is smoke, even in Egypt."

"I don't know, Freddy." Meg's voice broke; something suddenly choked her.

"The story goes that they met as if by accident in the open desert. Millicent had taken a splendid travelling equipment with her. She has made no secret of her love for Michael in the camp."

Meg was silent. A furious rage was gnawing at her bowels; it was going to her brain.

"Michael made a fine show of surprise," Freddy continued. "But it did not deceive the natives. She doesn't seem to be very popular with them."

Meg was thinking and thinking. Was this the explanation why over and over again she had had presentiments that Michael was in trouble, that he needed her? She had so often tried to reach him. Suddenly a light broke on her darkness, her whirlwind of anger abated.

"Freddy," she said, more gently. "If Millicent was in the camp, their meeting in the desert was unexpected by Michael. She trapped him, she planned it all. Don't you remember, that night when you found me on the balcony? I told you I had heard Michael calling to me. I can hear his voice now." She paused. "He woke me as surely as Mohammed Ali wakes me every morning. He wouldn't have wanted my help if he had been happy with Millicent, if he had arranged the meeting." Meg laughed, but there were tears in her voice. "That's the explanation, as clear as daylight. It's been sent to me, this light, to lighten my darkness."

"What is as clear as daylight, Meg? You put far too much faith in dreams and visions. I want to get you out of this. I wish you were more like your old practical self. What has this wonderful light made clear?"

"That Millicent tricked and trapped Michael, that she followed him."

"Do you mean that you think that she met Michael against his wish?"
Freddy's soul wondered at the faith of women.

"I do. I don't think she ever mentioned her plans to him. I can see it all as clear as a pikestaff." A sudden sob broke Meg's voice. Her thankfulness at the unexpected revelation of the mystery caused it. "Of course, that's it. Millicent tempted Michael, after she had once met him. He thought he was proof against her woman's wiles, but while we're on earth we're only human, Freddy, and he was afraid of his own weakness. He called to me. We arranged to help each other—we were always to try our best to reach each other when we felt troubled. Love is not such a simple thing as it seems. I used to think that when once one was engaged to the man one loved, one would just be at anchor in a divine calm."

"You believe in dreams and all that sort of thing too much. Michael's led you off—he's to blame."

"There are some things one must believe in, Freddy. Our development is in other hands."

"What are they? Mere old wives' tales and charlatans' prophecies."

"Oh, Freddy!"

"Well, Michael's religion's got so mixed, he doesn't know what he is or what he believes in and doesn't believe in. He has a fine scorn for the old order of things. The beliefs of our forefathers have kept the Lampton men pretty straight and made splendid wives and mothers of their women, and I think that's good enough for this everyday, practical world!"

"Has it been their belief that has done it, Freddy, or their family traditions? I think we Lamptons are as true ancestor-worshippers as any Shintoists in Japan. I was never taught anything about my higher self as a child, or made to see that religion was a vital part of our existence. It was the shades of our ancestors, nothing more or less—what would Uncle John have thought, or what would Aunt Anna think? It was never what would your own soul think—was it now? It was pure Shinto. Our god-shelf bore the family-portraits."

"A jolly good worship, too. You can't do anything very far wrong if you never disgrace the honour of your ancestors. I think it's as good a principle, and far more practical and restraining than Michael's mixture of Akhnaton's Aton worship and I don't know what else. I get lost when he expounds his idea of God."

"It annoys you that his God is too big for any church. The Lamptons have always been ardent upholders of the Established Church of England."

"Let him enlarge his church, build his God a bigger one."

"That's just what he has done, that's just what he says the Protestant church has failed to do. Their church has never expanded. People's minds have grown, while the Church of England—and, in fact, all churches—have stood still."

"Michael can't do things in moderation—he's just an enthusiast about his religion, as he has been about all his phases."

"The best of all things! What were your Luthers, your Cromwells, and St. Francis?" Meg paused. Her voice fell. "And Our Lord? Weren't they enthusiasts? Did they take things moderately? Does moderation ever achieve anything? Napoleon said no country was ever conquered by half methods."

"Mike's enthusiasm is only theoretical. If he has done this thing, his new religion allows him too much latitude. He'd much better have stuck to our plain ancestor-worship."

"But he hasn't done it! You know he hasn't. Don't go over it again.
That detestable woman met him and trapped him."

"And tempted him? The old, old story—the world's first romance—'the woman tempted me and I fell.'"

Meg's tears had dried very quickly. She was strong again. "I don't see how you can speak like that. You told me that Michael was straight as a die—you know you did."

"But I said he was weak—I told you that, too, didn't I?"

"If being human is weak, then I suppose he is. I never met a man who was a saint. And if believing that we are all more good than bad is weak, then I admit his lack of strength. It is his humility that makes it impossible for him to think evil of anyone. I have often proved it. Almost any man is a better man than himself in his own eyes."

"Bosh!" Freddy said. "I do wish he was more ordinary, less of a crank about these things! How can he think he isn't as good a man as that fair-tongued, lying Mohammed Ali, for instance, or any of these lying sensualists? It's the ugliest of all prides, the one that apes humility, Meg. Lots of religious enthusiasts have it."

"No, not with Michael. He thinks he is less good than they are because he is perfectly conscious of God, as he expresses it. He enjoys all the privileges of a close connection with God; he doesn't only pray to Him, as we do. He lives with him; Mike is never alone. And yet, with all that sense of God, he is full of faults and failings. These men and women, who to us appear so bad, are simply further back in their evolution. They can't be bad, if it is not their fault. They have not had the same privileges, they are only gradually evolving. Spiritually they are like the dwellers in the slums as compared with the inmates of the beautifully-appointed hygienic house in the country. Michael is in the light; these poor souls are in darkness. It is all a part of the Great Law."

Freddy had finished his tea. It had afforded him little pleasure. He must come to some definite understanding with Meg. His thoughts had been all centred on the plan of sending her home, getting her away from the atmosphere which had so strong a hold over her imagination. Perhaps if she was back in England, she might be able to put Michael and his ideas out of her thoughts. He had no wish to be disloyal to his friend, or to give him no chance to defend himself; but he had to admit that he was very thankful that it was Michael himself who had insisted that there was to be no recognized engagement between them. Had he at the time had any motive for insisting on the fact? That was an idea; it had not occurred to him before.

He turned to Meg and said abruptly. "What about going home, Meg? It's getting too hot for this sort of thing—the Valley is stifling."

"What do you mean?"

"It's too hot—the year's advancing."

Meg tried to speak calmly.

"Don't treat me like a naughty child, Freddy. If it gets hotter than the Inferno I won't leave the place until I hear from Michael." She was not going to be a Lampton in one respect and not in another. A horse with the staggers was not in it with a mulish Lampton.

"If you hear from him, or find undeniable proofs that the story is true, will you go then?"

"Yes, when Michael tells me with his own lips, or I see it in his own handwriting, or I myself am convinced that Millicent was with him, I will meekly obey you. You can rely upon the Lampton pride. It won't fail me."

"Right you are, old girl! That's all I'll ask." Freddy bent down and pressed her head to his breast. "I hope to God that will never be, old lady, you know that."

Freddy's little touch of tenderness was the last straw. It was too much for Meg. She turned round and hid her face against his shoulder. A very fountain of weeping welled up.

"You dear, blessed old thing! I've been a brute, a perfect brute, but I love him awfully! Oh, Freddy, you don't know how much I can love, and you hurt me dreadfully!" She had sobbed out the words. The fiery Lampton was now a sorrowing, heartsick girl, hungering for her lover's caresses. Freddy's gentleness had called up a thousand wants.

Freddy knew that affection was what she needed, but he was a bad hand at any show of brotherly emotion. The Lampton men were fine lovers; no woman had ever found them wanting in the art. But it was part of their tradition to suppress all outward signs of family affection. Instinct told him that some caresses and a petting were what his sister longed for. For weeks she had been robbed of a lover's devotion, a very fine lover, who had filled her days with romance and her heart with song.

"You weren't a bit a brute, Meg. You were just as usual, a bit more like a man than a girl. I'd have done and said just as you did if anyone had said things about the woman I loved—or, I hope I should."

Meg only hugged her brother. Words were beyond her. She knew by the way he was speaking that he was quite glad to help her, now that he had got over the disagreeable business of telling her and warning her, that his efforts would be turned now towards the finding of Michael's whereabouts and dotting to the bottom of the gossip. She looked up with cheerful eyes.

"Do you remember that day, Freddy, when Millicent Mervill lunched here?"

"Rather!"

"And you said she came for some object which she took care not to reveal?"

"Yes, I remember."

"Well, I never told you, because I thought you had good reason for thinking that I was too hard on her, that I was jealous of her, to the exclusion of all reason. . . ."

"You are pretty good at hating, Meg."

"Well, Mohammed Ali has since told me where he found her eye of Horus.
Guess where it was."

Freddy laughed. "I'm sure I couldn't."

"She read my diary all the time she was here alone. He says she asked if she might rest and tidy up in my room. He found the eye of Horus just beside the table where she had been reading it. He thinks that it must have caught in the key of the drawer in the table. Probably she thought we were coming and moved quickly away—the ring was easily wrenched open."

"The little cad!" Freddy said slowly. "The venomous little toad!"

"In my diary, Freddy, I referred to Michael's strange journey, his journey to King Solomon's Mines, as we always called it."

Freddy freed himself from his sister's arms and lit a cigarette.

"What a mean little brute! Mohammed Ali was probably in her pay; he told her he had found the eye at the spot where she dismounted."

"He said he told that lie because Madam made a face at him. He confesses to that."

Freddy thought for a moment while he smoked, then he said slowly and deliberately: "If she got that information from your diary, she could easily get more. Baksheesh will make the dead give up their secrets. That is why Bismarck said to his generals, never tell your own shirt what you want kept a secret. Diaries are dangerous things, Meg."

"I wrote it in French," Meg said. "I thought only the servants would stoop to reading it and they can't read French."

"Next time, try invisible ink. In Egypt, once a thing is written or told, it is public property."

"I scarcely write anything now," she said. "I feel as if some spy will see it, and the dry bones of a diary never interest me."

As Freddy was leaving the sitting-room—he was going to bed for a couple of hours before he began work again—Margaret said to him:

"Just tell me before you go, where you first heard the report about
Michael, and from whom you heard it."

"One or two days ago," he said. "I heard a smouldering gossip about it going on amongst the workmen. They'd got wind of it somehow. No one ever knows how these things begin. Then I met young King from Professor L——'s camp, and he told me the whole story. He knew Millicent very well. He said she's not what you could call an immoral woman so much as a woman without morals. He confesses he never met anyone in the least like her before, and he rather prides himself on his knowledge of the world—he would have us believe that he has seen a devil of a lot. He wondered at a man of Michael's refined temperament taking her into the desert in the way he has done."

"He never took her," Meg said. "Isn't it hateful, Freddy, hearing people make these assertions about our Mike?"

"That's what I meant," Freddy said, "when I told you that I hated your name being mixed up with his."

"Oh, that's not what troubles me. No one knows me out here, or my affairs. I meant that it's such a wicked libel on Michael, who's not here to defend himself."

"But if she's there with him, what can you expect the world to say, to believe?"

"If she followed him and joined him, it wouldn't be very easy to shake her off, would it?"

Freddy smiled. "You're right there—the fair Millicent wouldn't go because she wasn't wanted!"

"I often ask myself why and how we tolerated her."

"Did we?" Freddy laughed.

"Well, yes, we did. Even I found myself liking her that day after lunch. I began to wonder if I had always been too hard on her, if I had had my judgment perverted by my jealousy."

"Surely you're not really jealous of Millicent?" Freddy paused. "That is, if you are confident that Michael is not with her at the present moment?"

"I am confident, Freddy. All the same, I have lots to be jealous of. Her beauty amazes me every time I look at her and, after all, beauty is a rare and wonderful thing. Lots of women are good to look at and attractive, but Millicent is beautiful. You have often said how rare real beauty is and how carelessly we use the expression. Millicent deserves it."

"You needn't be jealous of mere beauty, Meg. Even when she's on her best behaviour, she never could impress a stranger as being anything but what she is, a soulless little minx."

"Yet you thoroughly enjoyed her company, Freddy."

"I know I did. She's amusing, her personality is stimulating. But I shouldn't like to have too much of it."

"Yet you'd have kissed her if you'd been alone with her—you said you'd try!"

Freddy did not deny the accusation.

"Men are queer things," Meg said; "but you must get off to bed, you look awfully tired."

She hated to have to send him away, for it was only on very rare occasions, and quite unexpectedly, that Freddy expressed his opinions. He belonged to the silent order of mankind; to strangers he never revealed himself; he rarely said anything in their presence which suggested that he had opinions at all, or that he was really an exceedingly thoughtful person. Meg knew that he had ideas and thoughts—very sound, clear ideas, too. She knew that Freddy thought while other men talked. All the same, his opinions and thoughts, apart from his profession, were apt to be strangled and suffocated by tradition. Tradition was a mighty force in the Lampton family. It almost, as Meg said, amounted to ancestor-worship. Freddy's choice of a profession had been his one act of emancipation. He had, according to family tradition, been destined for either the navy or the army, and it had taken no little strength of character to cut the first link in the chain.

When Freddy had gone to lie down and the little hut was left to its midday silence—the tropical breathless silence of Upper Egypt, when the sun is so hot that even a lizard would not venture from its shelter—Meg sat down on a chair close to the table, and laid her head on her arms.

She was tired, tired, tired. She must forget things for a little time, before she even tried to review the situation, or think out what was best to be done. If only she could will herself into absolute unconsciousness for a little time, how sweet it would be! If she let herself sleep—even though sleep seemed very far from her—she might dream of Millicent, and that would be worse than wakefulness and remembrance. To trust herself to the lordship of dreams was to seek refuge in the unknown, and that was dangerous. It was total unconsciousness which she desired, the restful unconsciousness of a blank mind. She remained perfectly still for a little time, asking for rest, asking for the power not to think. She concentrated her thoughts on this one desire; she opened her being for the reception of peace.

Suddenly the voice which heals spoke. It suggested a respite for her troubles. "No mind can remain a blank," it said. "Try instead to think of your vision, fill your whole being with its beauty, repeat to yourself all that happened during that wonderful revelation."

Unconsciously and swiftly Meg's painful thoughts drifted away. The picture of Millicent amusing and tempting her lover, which had danced before her eyes, was no longer there—or, at all events, it was not dominating her mind, and Freddy's words no longer rang in her ears. Her misery, made by her own thoughts, left her, as a headache leaves a sufferer when a sedative has been administered. The gentle voice, the divine attendant, achieved its work. Meg had asked for rest and for forgetfulness. Her prayer was being answered. It repeated to her the tender words of Akhnaton; it told her in Michael's own dear way the true explanation of her vision. With tightly-closed eyes and her head bowed, she saw again the whole scene. It was unnaturally vivid—the luminous figure, with the pitying, sorrowful eyes. As she gazed at it, to her spirit came the same quiet comfort as had come to her on that night when the vision had visited her. So clearly could she see the rays of Aton behind the high crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, that she lifted up her head. Perhaps He was there, in the sitting-room, standing just in front of her? Had the luminous body penetrated the darkness of her tightly-closed eyes?

Meg blinked her eyes to rid them of their confusion; her fingers had been tightly pressed against them. She looked fixedly into the space in front of her. Nothing was there; the room was just as it had been when she closed her eyes. The disordered table, the cigarette-ash in the two saucers, the crumbs from a Huntley and Palmer's cake on the table-cloth—these homely things struck her as incongruous. She had expected a vision of Akhnaton; she had hoped for it.

She put her head down on her arms again; her thoughts had been very sweet; with closed eyes they might come back again. How absurd it was to think of such material things as the silver paper round the imported cake, and to remember that Freddy had said he was sick of tinned apricot jam!

These domestic thoughts had taken but a second. She was going back to her vision and to the happiness it had given her.

And so it came to pass that just as Michael had found solace for heart and mind in the dancing of the daffodils which he had visualized in the eastern desert, so Meg's bruised heart lost its sense of fear in her visualizing of the world's first reformer.

* * * * * *

When Freddy returned to the sitting-room, refreshed and invigorated, he woke his sister by his noisy entrance. He was extremely angry with himself, and showed his sorrow very tenderly.

Meg looked at him with half-awakened senses. Where was she? What was she doing? What hour of the day was it?

"Never mind, Freddy, I've slept long enough." She smiled, and looked as though the thoughts from which she drew her happiness were far away.

Freddy put his two hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Were your dreams very nice, old girl? You look as if you'd been playing on the Elysian plain, or had been re-born!"

Meg pulled-her brother's face down to the level of her own and whispered, "Heavenly, Freddy, heavenly!"