When Michael got back to the camp there was so much genuine pleasure in being one of the trio again that he felt that it had been well worth the trouble of the journey, to be received back again so warmly and to see unclouded happiness in Margaret's smile. Her character was transparently sincere.

How radiant she looked, as Freddy and she hurried to meet him! A glad picture for tired eyes.

"Things are 'piping'!" she said eagerly, when he inquired about the "dig." "Freddy has only been waiting for you to come back before he clears out the last few days' debris from the shaft. He has been tidying up the site—it looks much more important."

Tired as Michael was after his hot journey, instinctively they turned their steps to the excavation. Things had certainly advanced greatly during Michael's absence. The deep shaft was almost cleared of rubbish; the site was tidied up and in spick-and-span order.

Michael was very soon drawn into the feeling of excitement and anticipation. Freddy, he thought, looked tired and anxious, which was, of course, only natural, for Michael knew that on his shoulders rested the entire responsibility of the "dig" and that anything might happen during the time they were waiting for the photographer and the Chief Inspector.

Michael's imagination was ever too vivid. He could see a hundred plundering hands stretched out in the darkness to seize the buried treasure. He could visualize the poisoning of the watch-dogs and the silent killing of the guards, and Freddy waking up to find that his "pet tomb" had been burgled and robbed of its ancient treasures.

A good deal of discussion ensued between Michael and Freddy which was above Margaret's head. The approximate date of the tomb and a hundred different suggestions and problems which were still beyond her knowledge were gone into by the two Egyptologists. The soothsayer's predictions were not improbable; there were evidences which suggested that the tomb was one of great importance.

"Let's get back to dinner," Freddy said. "I scarcely had any lunch—I couldn't leave the men. I'm ready for some food."

Instantly they retraced their steps. Margaret was humming softly the air of some popular song. Both she and Michael were always anxious to administer to Freddy's wishes.

"It's topping to be back," Michael said. "The smells in Cairo were pretty bad. This is glorious!"

They had almost reached the hut.

"We have only mummy smells here," Margaret said. "But they get pretty thick, as the store-room fills up with finds." She looked round. "Freddy, if I'd a little water, I could make the desert blossom like the rose." She sighed happily. "As it is, it's 'paradise enow'—I don't think I want it other than it is."

While they were at dinner, which, compared to their usual simple fare, was of the fatted-calf order and one of Margaret's devising, Michael told them of all that he had done in Luxor and Cairo, not keeping back even his excursion to the Pyramids or his visit to el-Azhar. Freddy was greatly entertained by both episodes, the one as a strong antidote to the other.

Michael had, of course, given but few details of either experience.
The mystic's counsel was not, he felt, suited for discussion and
certainly he had no wish to annoy Margaret by unnecessary remarks about
Millicent Mervill.

There was something in Mike's manner which assured Freddy that the influence of the mystic had triumphed, that the beautiful Millicent had not exercised her usual powers over his friend.

During the recital of his doings, Margaret met Mike's eyes frankly. Hers were without questions or doubts. She felt as Freddy did—that the woman whom she so much disliked had not again come between them. After all, the promise which she had given Michael, and which she had kept, might have availed.

As Michael had never spoken one word of love to Margaret, she had, of course, no right to expect him to behave towards her as if they were engaged; and yet there was that between them which meant far more than a mere formal proposal and acceptance of marriage. Some influence had brought them together in a manner which seemed outside themselves. They had been the closest friends from the very first. Her vision had united their interests.

Of marriage as the definite result of their close, yet indefinite intimacy, Margaret still never thought. Mike and marriage seemed qualities which separated like oil and water. All she asked of fate at present was the continuance of their unique friendship and the life which she found so absorbingly interesting. A year ago she had longed to come to Egypt, but a year ago she had never dreamed that she would become so thrilled with the excavating of a tomb which had been made for a man who probably lived before Moses. The human side of Egyptology was being revealed to her. She did not feel now as if her brother was only going to discover a fresh mummy to put away in a museum somewhere; he was going to break into the secret dwelling-house of a man who had taken his treasures with him to live for ever in the bowels of the smiling hills. There are few tombs in Egypt as the Western world thinks of tombs; there are eternal mansions, gorgeously decorated and superbly built and equipped. The abiding cities of the Egyptians were the cities of the dead.

Margaret was living on the horizon of life. Every breath of desert air was like delicious food; every dawn and sunset stored her heart with dreams; each fresh intimacy with Michael placed a new jewel in the casket of her soul; every hour with Freddy was a privilege and a reward. In her veins the dance of youth tripped a lightsome measure. Happiness made every moment vital.

During Michael's absence she had been down the valley and up the valley and through its hidden ways; she was familiar now with the native life in the camp and with the sights and sounds of Egypt. The flight of a falcon over the Theban hills seemed as familiar to her as the bounding of a wild rabbit on the Suffolk wolds. The desolation of the valley had now become the Spirit of Peace, the Voice of Sympathy. Her jealousy was aroused at the very thought of another woman being admitted into the privacy of the camp. Being a true woman, it gave her intense satisfaction to be the only one, to be the chosen companion of her brother and of Mike.

They were always eager for her companionship. If Freddy did not want her, Mike did; if Mike had work to do which demanded perfect solitude, she felt that Freddy was not sorry. Yet they were all three such good friends that more often than not they played together delightfully childish games. It was nevertheless rather a red-letter day for either of the two men when circumstances so arranged it that Meg had to go off with one of them alone on some excursion which combined business with pleasure.

Margaret, womanlike, loved the nicest of all feelings—"being wanted." She would have liked her life to go on for ever just as it was, her society always desired by two of the dearest men in the world and her days filled with this novel and extraordinary work.

But even in the desert, things do not stand still. If they did, temples could not have been buried and cities lost. So after dinner, when Freddy, like the dear human brother that he was, allowed Michael and Margaret to spend some considerable time alone, the high gods took in hand the affairs of these two human lives, lives which had been well content to rest on their oars and drift with the tide.

Michael had had no prearranged desire to change the conditions of their intimacy. It was beautiful. He had given no thought to himself as Margaret's lover. He had been content to be her partner in that tip-toe dance of expectation and in that state of undeclared devotion which is the life and breath of a woman's existence.

On the evening of his return to the camp he felt a new joy in Margaret's presence. Catching the sound of her voice in her coming and going about their small hut was a delicious assurance of the happiness that was to be his for some days to come. She illuminated the place and vitalized his energies. Yet this deepened pleasure told him nothing—nothing, at any rate, of what the gods had up their sleeves.

They were standing, as they had often stood before, on some high ridge of the desert cliff which overlooked its desolation and immensity. Margaret's face was star-lit; her beauty softened. As Michael gazed at her, he lost himself.

As unexpectedly to Margaret as to himself, his arms enfolded her. He told her that he loved her.

This confession of his feelings for her was so sudden, a thing so far beyond his self-control and so inevitable, that Margaret made no attempt to withstand it. The beauty of it humbled her to silence; the generosity of life and its gift to her bewildered her. Two tears rolled quickly down her cheeks. Michael saw them and loved her all the more tenderly. Absurd tears, when her heart could not contain all her happiness! Meg dived for her handkerchief. Michael captured her hands; he took his own handkerchief and dried her cheeks, while laughter, mingled with weeping, prevented her from speaking.

"I didn't mean to tell you, Meg," he said. "It just came out, as if it wasn't my own self who was speaking."

The humour of his words drove the tears from her eyes. Still she did not speak, but he saw the inference of her smile.

"I mean," he said, "that this other me has loved you all the time, the me that couldn't help speaking, the me that recognized the fact ever since I saw you at the ferry. How I loved the first glimpse of you, Meg!"

He drew her more closely to him. "May I love you, dearest?" He bent his head; their lips were almost touching; he held her closely. "First tell me that our friendship is love."

His breath warmed her cheeks; she could feel the tension of his body. Lost in his strength, Meg was speechless. The greatness of her love seemed a part of the wide Sahara. The stillness and his arms were lovelier than all the dreams she had ever dreamed.

His voice was a low whisper. "Meg, do you love me?" His lips had not taken their due.

Meg's fingers encircled her throat. "Love is choking me. . . . I can't speak."

Instantly Michael's head bent lower. He kissed her lips, and then, for the first time, Margaret knew what it was to be dominated by her senses. Thought fled from her; her lover's lips and his strength, for he seemed to be holding her up in a great world of impressions in which she could feel no foundation, were the two things left to her.

Michael realized that now and for ever there could be no going back. Their old state of friendship was shattered. His kiss had carried them at a rate which has no definition.

Margaret returned his love with a devout and beautiful passion. Eve had not been more certain that Adam was intended for her by God.

"Meg," he said, "how do you feel? I feel just a little afraid, I had no idea that love was like this. Had you? You have suddenly become as personal and necessary to me as my own arms or legs. You were you before—now you are a bit of me."

They were standing apart, facing each other, arms outstretched, hands in hands. Now and then the bewilderment of things made it very compelling, this desire to look and look into each other's eyes, to try to discover new characteristics born of their amazing confession.

"It's a tremendous thing," Meg said thoughtfully, "a tremendous and wonderful thing."

"If we have only lived for this one hour, it's worth it," Mike said.
"To you and me it's certainly a tremendous thing."

Some lover's questions followed, questions which Margaret had to answer, the sort of questions every woman knows whom love has not passed over, questions which Margaret, with all her fine Lampton brains and common sense, did not think foolish, questions which she answered more easily and accurately than any ever set to her in college or university examinations. She answered them, too, with a fine understanding of human nature. Lampton brains were not to be despised, even in the matter of "How, when and where did you first love me?"

She knew quite well what Michael meant when he said that he was a little afraid. She, too, felt a little afraid, just because things could never be the same again. Love in Egypt seemed to become Egyptian in its immensity and power. It was a part of the desert and in the brightness of each glittering star. She doubted if she could have felt this tremendousness of love in England. Had something in the power of Egypt, in the passing of its civilization and religions, affected her senses? She could not imagine feeling, as she now felt, in Suffolk. Here, in this valley of sleeping Pharaohs, in this eternal city of a lost civilization, she had been transformed into another creature.

These thoughts jumbled themselves together in her mind, as they dawdled back to the camp, the happy dawdling of lovers.

Suddenly Michael caught her in his arms and said, "Meg, how on earth am
I going to make you understand how much I love you?"

Meg read an unhappy meaning in the words. "I shall understand," she said. "I think something outside myself will help me to understand."

He turned her face up to the stars. It was bathed in light.

"You beautiful Meg, the stars adore you!"

Meg struggled and laughed. "I'm so glad my face is all right, that you like it, Mike."

Mike laughed. "I shouldn't mind if you weren't beautiful, you know I shouldn't, for you'd still be you."

Meg's practical common sense was not to be drugged by love's ether.
"Dear," she said happily, "don't talk rubbish! As if you, with your
artistic sense and love of beauty, would have fallen in love with me if
I had turned-in-feet and a face half forehead, just because I was me!"

They both laughed happily. Then Michael said, sadly and abruptly—his voice had lost its confidence—"Why have I let myself say all this, Meg? What thrust my feelings into expression, feelings I scarcely was conscious of possessing until I saw you lit up by the shining stars? I never, never planned such a thing."

"I know," Meg said. "We neither of us dreamed of it when we left the hut, did we?"

"I had a thousand other things to consult you about, to tell you," he said. "I have a thousand other things to do. I have a mission to fulfil before I speak of love. It just came, it suddenly bubbled up and poured over like water in a too-full bottle."

"Do you regret it?" Margaret said simply and sympathetically. She was not hurt; she knew what he meant; she knew that he had more than once spoken of the single-heartedness of a man's work, the work which Mike hoped to do, when he had no family ties, no woman's love to bind him, to nourish and satisfy.

"Dearest—I don't regret it," he said. "It was inevitable. Something else would have called it forth if the stars hadn't. All the same, it is of you I am thinking . . . I had no right to . . ."

"To what, Mike?"

"I'm a drifter, Meg, and I'm not ready to be anything else—I can't be."

"I don't want you to be anything else." Meg's voice and laugh were
Love. Her sincere eyes were happily confident.

"People who 'walk on their heads' don't make fortunes, beloved."

"People who think the desert is 'paradise enow' don't need fortunes."

Michael pressed the palms of her hands to his lips. "Dear strong hands," he said, "are they willing to work with mine?"

"Oh, Mike," she said. "I'm so glad, so happy! It doesn't seem fair—our world's all heaven to-night—I want others to have just a little of it."

They listened to the silence.

Michael's thoughts were of his world-state, his religion of Love, the closeness of God.

"Every star in the sky seems to know about our love," Meg said. "And I think the waiting silence has been expecting this."

"I know," Michael said. "To me love seems to be crowding the valley and flying down from the hills and searching the stillness. Life's become a new kind of thing altogether, Meg, we'll have to help each other."

"That's just what I feel. It's alarming to find yourself quite a different human being in less than an hour, to have suddenly developed unsuspected elements in your nature." She laughed. "I never thought I could be such a complete fool, dearest."

Michael kissed her rapturously. "Let's be big, big fools, beloved, let's enjoy this thing that's come to us." He paused. Again he looked troubled and serious.

"Why trouble?" Meg said. "I know just what's in your heart. You love me and I love you, and I trust you. You weren't ready for any engagement—you never thought of marriage. Well, let all that come in good time if it is meant to be. Let us be content with love for the present. It's surely big enough." She sighed. "It's tired me, Mike, it's so enormous."

"But, dearest, I meant to talk to you about very different things.
Love just caught me. . . . I was taken unawares . . . some look of
yours did it, or some trick of the stars. . . I can't tell which.
Anyhow, it's done."

"Tell me," she said. "All that you had meant to talk about. It's not too late. We must be friends as well as lovers now."

"It was about my visit to el-Azhar in Cairo."

"Yes?" Meg said. Her breath came more quickly.

"My old friend told me the most extraordinary things. He had seen visions."

Their eyes met. Meg's held a question; they asked: "Had they any connection with my vision?"

"Yes," Michael said to her unspoken question. "He saw me on a long desert journey. I was often surrounded by a wonderful light—a light which, he said, had come from one of God's messengers, who was never far from me. He said he saw the messenger of God always in the midst of a great light, like the light of the sun, that he resembled no mortal he had ever seen, or any king he had ever been shown in his dreams."

Meg drew in her breath nervously. "Had he ever heard of Akhnaton,
Mike?"

"No, never. He is quite unread, totally unlearned and ignorant of all except the teachings of the Koran."

Margaret's quick breathing showed her excitement. Michael, too, became nervous.

"He saw me always in the light of this great messenger, a light, he said, which surrounded his figure with rays like the rays of the sun."

"Just as I saw him," Meg said. "How strange! How wonderful!"

"He spoke of trials and temptations and, strangest of all, of much gold. He saw the treasure very clearly and repeatedly—much fine gold, he was certain of that."

"How are you to discover it?" Meg spoke dubiously. Her practical mind was fighting against the absurdity of the thing.

"He could not tell me. In the desert I was to be led by a little child—you know what that means?"

"Yes, a simple, a child of God."

They paused.

"Now the odd thing is," Michael said thoughtfully, "that when I went to see Michael Ireton, he strongly advised me to go and find myself, as he expressed it, in the desert. He said, 'Cut yourself off from your friends, from opposing influences, and think things out. Go where you are called.'"

"He meant Freddy's opposing influence?"

"I suppose so. Freddy's character is stronger than mine, and we have opposite views."

"Are you going?" Meg's voice betrayed a new anxiety and sadness.

"I meant to." His eyes spoke of his new reluctance. "That was why I had no right to speak—I really wanted to go."

"This must make no difference—it must help you."

"But I shall want to be with you—it's hard to go."

"If you stayed, you would be restless, dissatisfied."

"I know." He laughed. "I want both to 'walk on my head,' Meg, and stand firmly on my two legs—my legs are for a home for you."

"And your head?"

"Oh," he said, "for anything that is upside down to what it is now, for the total destruction of obsolete and effete monuments, for exchanging new principles for those that are worn out with age, for showing that fundamental truths are not made by empire-builders, that the world is God's Kingdom, not man's, that God is the only monarch whose throne is not tottering."

"Yes," Meg said. "I suppose destruction must come before the building up, your task of pulling down, of clearing out the corner-stones, of cleansing the temple."

"I know," Michael said. "It's the way with 'cranks.' We all of us jaw about destroying and offer no new plans for reconstruction." He paused. "But it's rather like the problem of cleaning out a too-full house—you can't really get rid of the dust unless you first of all clear the whole thing out, empty it."

"You want to abolish so much, Mike."

"All the rubbish," he said. "All the hindrances. I want to let in light."

"Beginning with kings," Meg said, tantalizingly. The voice was
Freddy's.

"I've no rooted objection to kings, as human mortals," he said. "I suppose half the monarchs in Europe, and certainly our own included, are very good men, very anxious for their kingdom's prosperity, if not for their people's development. It's the condition of affairs which tolerates such an obsolete form of government. If the king is merely a picturesque figure-head, like the carved heads of Venus on a vessel's prow, I'd have no objection, but a despotic and vain peacock like the Kaiser, who turns his subjects into military instruments, in my opinion wants destroying along with the other rubbish."

"But to go back," Meg said, "to your old friend in el-Azhar—do tell me more about him."

"He's a splendid old warrior," Michael said tenderly. "When you think of what he's achieved, isn't he wonderful? I wish you could see him."

"The force of will-power, of concentration," Meg said. "I suppose he has never thought of anything else all his life, but this one dream of el-Azhar."

"That's it," Mike said. "But what gives these Moslems that wonderful power of mind-control?" Mike paused. "Now, here am I," he said. "I came out with you to-night meaning to tell you that I was going away."

"Oh," Meg said. "Not yet—not until the tomb is opened? Surely not?"

"No, not until the tomb is opened—I had no intention of that."

She sighed. "That would be too awful."

Michael kissed her. "How nice of you!" he said. "You really wanted me?"

"Of course! I have visualized the opening of the tomb—you and I crawling down the 'dig,' with Freddy waiting at the foot to show us his treasures. You couldn't have gone!"

"No," he said, "I couldn't. But I wanted to tell you that I was going soon after. I was going for reasons that only my own heart understood. And then what did I do? I told you that I loved you! I forgot everything but you, dearest. Before I knew it, I had spoken of what it might have been wiser to keep hidden away in my heart, with all my other mad dreams."

"But why, Mike? I should have been so very unhappy, so wretched. As it is, I am just bursting with happiness. I wouldn't change anything for worlds—not one tiny thing!"

"If you are contented," he said, "and understand, then it may not have been unwise, untrue to Freddy's trust in me."

"Oh," Meg said, "you dear, why, Freddy adores the very ground you walk on! He chaffs you, but he simply thinks no end of you."

"He doesn't want a drifter for a brother-in-law, if he's any common sense in his head. I'm the last husband he'd choose for his sister."

"But, Mike, how can you?"

"Yes, Meg, there are times when I don't 'walk on my head,' when I see with Freddy's sane eyes. It's what he'd call damned cheek of me to speak of love to you."

"I'd have called it horrid if you hadn't."

"You delicious Meg, would you really?"

"Yes, I would, horrid and cruel. I'd have imagined you really cared for . . ." she paused and then went on tenderly, ". . . no, I won't say it, Mike."

"Really cared!" he said. "Why, you have taught me what that word means. You'll never doubt that?"

"No," Meg said. "Not now. I know this is new to us both. I won't doubt anything ever again."

"She was friendless," he said. "And for some strange reason she thought herself fond of me."

"What a very strange thing to feel! I really can't understand it.
Fancy a woman feeling fond of a thing that walks on its head!"

"Don't laugh, Meg. She does, or thinks she does."

Meg looked into his eyes. "I'll never doubt you, Mike," she said, "if you'll tell me, under these dear stars, which have made you confess your love for me, that there has been no deep feeling on your side, that there is nothing that matters between you."

Mike took her two hands. "On my side, there has been nothing but friendship, I swear it," he said. "I never, never desired anything else. There has been nothing that matters."

"I'm so glad," Meg said. "You're so high, Mike, so awfully high in my love. Your drifting is all a part of it. I love you for all your mad dreams and dear unworldliness, for your struggling and striving for the highest. I should hate to have to believe that you were less high than I imagined."

"But I kissed her, Meg," he said, abruptly. The truth was drawn from him, as his confession of love had been, torn from him by some power outside himself. He hated giving her pain, and it had been scarcely necessary if Margaret had been other than she was.

It had not mattered—yet if truth was beauty and beauty was God, and his religion was that the kingdom of God is within us, how could he hold it back, this deed which, little as it might seem in the eyes of most people, had been for him a thing which did matter?

"You kissed her!" Meg said. Something that was not love was now bursting her throat. Her voice was uncertain. It hurt Michael like a thrust from a sharp knife.

"Yes," he said. "I kissed her, more than once."

"Her lips?" Meg asked.

"Yes, Meg, her lips."

"You kissed her as you have kissed me to-night?"

"Good heavens, no!" he cried. "Meg, how could you think it?"

"Life is strange," Meg said, a little wearily. "When everything seems most beautiful, some ugliness shows its head . . . the light gets so dim."

"Dearest," Mike said, "do you remember what you said on that morning when we found each other again? You said, 'Let's go forward; things are explained.'"

"Yes, I remember," she said, and as she spoke happiness shone in her eyes like a flame relit; "yes, I said regrets were foolish, I said I understood. But . . ." she hesitated; the thought of Mike's lips pressed to any other woman's than her own stifled her. She was his so completely, that any other man's lips pressed to hers, except Freddy's, would nauseate her. Yet Mike had kissed Millicent. Was it that night on the terrace, or the evening at the Pyramids? she wondered.

"We have gone forward, Meg. Millicent"—Meg shivered as he said the woman's Christian name—"was splendid at the Pyramids, she really was."

Again Meg shivered. Splendid! How, she wondered, had she been splendid? Meg hated being an inquisitor, yet she had to know; it was her right.

"Then it was not at the Pyramids that you kissed her?" she asked.

"No, no!" Mike said. "Of course not!" He looked at her in wonder.
"If it had been, I should not have dared to kiss you to-night."

"It's nice of you to say that, dear. Oh, Mike," she said tenderly, "you mean the world to me! I shall grow older by years for each moment that we don't trust one another! I should have known, I should never have doubted! You've chosen a very jealous woman, Mike."

"If you'd gone off to the Pyramids with some one whom I disliked as much as you dislike Millicent, I'd have been furious!" He felt Meg shiver. He divined the reason; he would not let that hurt her again. "You hate her, Meg," he said. "Just in the way I'd hate a man who . . ." he paused.

"Who what?" Meg said.

"Don't ask me," he said. "I never forgot you for one moment when I was with her at the Pyramids. You kept close to me, dearest. And the other episode is past and forgotten—it was just a little bit of vulgarity, Meg, nothing more."

"Since we made friends, there's been nothing between you that would make your kisses to me a mere vulgarity, Mike?"

"Nothing," he said. "And so far as I can help it, I will never see
Mrs. Mervill again."

Meg's eyes spoke her thanks. His avoidance of the woman's Christian name showed his sensitiveness to her feelings. Speaking of her as "Mrs. Mervill" put her pleasantly far away.

"I was weak and insincere—my kisses were really a dishonour to any woman, and I hated myself."

While Meg admired her lover for refraining from the excuse which Adam was not ashamed to offer His Maker, what was human in her longed to make him denounce the woman she hated. She had tried to provoke a justification of his own conduct from his lips by telling her what she felt to be the truth—that the woman had tempted him.

It was getting late; they turned towards the hut.

"We must go in," Meg said. "Freddy will be wondering what has become of us." She turned swiftly and took Michael's hands in hers. "Until after the tomb is opened, let us remain as we were—I mean, don't let's give Freddy any more to think about. Isn't he the dearest brother in the world?" she said. "I love every glittering hair of his head!"

"Very well, you dearest woman," Mike said. "Besides, we've only confessed that we love each other—I've asked for no promise, Meg—I've no right to. Remember, you are free, absolutely free—this old drifter isn't to count."

"Absolutely free!" Meg laughed. "Just as if words made us free! Four walls do not a prison make! You know perfectly well that I am tied hand and foot and bound all round about with the cords of your love. I can never be free again, never belong only to myself, as I used to do."

"And will you remember that whatever happens to me, Meg, it will be just the same?"

She knew that he was referring to his mystical journey, his unsettled future.

"It would be so heavenly," she said dreamily, "if we could be content to sit down and be happy and just live for the enjoyment of each other's love!"

"You'd despise me if I did." He looked round at the eternal valley, resting in the stillness of death.

"I suppose I should," Meg said. "I suppose I want you to take up arms for what Freddy calls your 'Utopian Rule of Righteousness,' your world-state."

"I think we should both feel slackers, just enjoying ourselves intellectually, dear, when we could, if we chose, let a few others into the great kingdom of God. You and I don't understand why they don't all see it as we do, why they don't realize the things Akhnaton knew three thousand years ago. We wonder why they remain contented with a religion of limited dogmas and theological forms. They don't see the obvious in their striving after doctrines. They fail to see that God is too big for their churches."

"You see these things," Meg said. "I'm only creeping behind you."

"You see that if we understand God and give Him His proper place, He'd rule us, His throne would govern a world-state. His love would be the law of mankind."

"I know," Margaret said. "It's beautiful, it's what ought to be, if poor mortals were not human beings."

"Mortals are the best things in God's kingdom—it's all been worked up for their enjoyment and benefit."

"I know, dear, I know, but you and I are just you and I, and we have just found love, and it is so wonderful, I want to enjoy it."

"Doesn't love make it all the more forcible, Meg? The closeness of God all the more certain? The weaving of the threads of His beautiful fabric all the more golden?—Akhnaton's great 'Lord of Fortune,' the 'Master of Things Ordained,' the 'Chance which gives Life,' the 'Origin of Fate,' call it what you will—the power which brought us here, you and I."

"And if we didn't follow that clear voice, Mike, whose rule is righteousness, why should He allow it?"

"Do we ever deliberately do what we know to be wrong and not pay for it, dearest?"

"But why does He allow it? It's a mill, dearest—one can go round and round, and round and round."

"And in the end," Mike said. "It's just God, His prescribed rule, His unfightable force."

* * * * * *

When the two lovers entered the sitting-room, Freddy was instantly as conscious of the new aura which surrounded them as he was conscious of the sweet desert air which clung to their clothes and bodies. It came like a whiff from a far pure world.

"How fuggy you are in here," Meg said. "Dear boy, stop working."

"All right," he said. "I was only waiting for you to come in." Freddy was not the sort to see anything which he was not meant to see. If the two lovers had anything to tell him, they would tell him. Until then, he would mind his own business.

"You go and have a smoke outside," Meg said. "I'll put away all this."

"All this" meant the boxes of "finds" and the papers of plans and figures which they had all been working at earlier in the evening.