The next morning Margaret rose early. During her long and sleepless night she had reviewed her position over and over again; there seemed to be no way out of it. She must and would keep her promise to Freddy.

It is impossible to give a lucid interpretation of her tortured feelings. In her practical, reasoning mind her thoughts were black and suspicious; her heart was full of doubts, anger, wounded pride; while in the background, still shining like the dim light on the horizon at the approach of dawn, was her unconquerable belief in her lover's honour.

She felt compelled to act up to her practical judgment, to her promise that she would go home to England if she heard from either Michael's or Millicent's own lips that they had been together in the desert. But it was the horizon-light which helped her and made her able to bear the shock of Millicent's brutal announcement.

For one whole night she had faced the certain fact that Millicent had camped in the desert with Michael. Anyone who has considered the ceaseless workings of the human brain will understand what no pen could describe—the countless arguments for and against her lover's honour which came and went in an endless rotation in Margaret's mind.

She was glad when daylight flooded the room and she could get up and take the definite steps which would settle her doom. There is nothing so unendurable as lying in bed, a victim to miserable thoughts.

As soon as she was dressed she wrote a brief letter to Freddy. She felt like a criminal writing a warrant for her own arrest, but as the thing had to be done, it was best to get it over soon as possible.

"DEAR CHUM,

"Last night I saw Millicent Mervill and what she told me leaves me no choice. I will keep my promise and go back to England. A boat goes next Tuesday; if I can book a passage I shall go by it. Until then I will stay with Hadassah Ireton. I like her most awfully.

"Please don't think that by keeping my promise to you I am condemning Mike or that I have given up hope that one day he will be able to explain everything satisfactorily. Don't worry about me, dear old thing. I'm all right and I will take every care of myself, so keep your mind easy on that point. I'm not nearly so wretched as I should be if I believed everything that this letter implies.

"Yours ever,

"MEG.

"P.S.—Millicent pretended not to know anything about the information which the Government has received. She told me, with an air of beautiful innocence, that an uncle in Australia had left her a nice legacy. Funny isn't it? I think I managed to behave pretty well—the shades of our ancestors guarded me, I suppose."

When the letter was posted, and could not be retrieved, Meg went into the coffee-room and tried to soothe her soul with material comforts. An excellent cup of coffee made a good beginning. The letter settling her fate was in the post-office; she was going home to England in a few days. She was trying to swallow the hard facts with each mouthful which she drank.

What a contrast her leaving Egypt would be to her arrival in the country! How flattened out and disillusioned she would feel! What an ordinary, everyday ending to her vivid romance in the Valley! When she thought of the little hut, almost hidden in one of the many wrinkles of the hills, she smiled. Her senses glowed; she visualized the arid scene, suddenly transformed into an Eden with Love's passion-flowers. No garden in paradise could suggest to a Moslem mind diviner voices or greater radiance. Cairo, with its confusion of sounds and its medley of human races, was empty and meaningless; it was wiped out. She was once more in the Valley, where life was vital and human.

After a little time of happy dreaming, the bitter fact came back to her, like a cold wind disturbing a summer's heat, that she had actually written to her brother promising him that she would go home. What would Hadassah think? What did her own conscience say?

Yet only one hour ago she had felt convinced that she was doing her duty, that her honour and womanly pride demanded that she should keep her promise. She had nerved herself against a thousand inner voices to obey her brother. She blushed for shame. In writing the letter she had practically admitted Michael's unfaithfulness as a lover. How could she have allowed herself to be so devastated by jealousy, have allowed her mind to be so concentrated on the unlovely side of the story? Even Hadassah Ireton had scorned it, while she, "the mistress of Mike's happiness," had doubted and despaired!

Poor Margaret! If she had been less human, her Valley of Eden had held no flowers. The desert had been a wilderness indeed.

* * * * * *

The psychic and devotional side of her lover's nature engrossed her thoughts. She recalled to her mind all that he had taught and explained to her about the views and religion of the tragic Pharaoh, the world's first conscientious objector.

Since she had heard of the scandal, she had scarcely thought of the occult and psychic side of the journey. Her attitude had been self-engrossed and materialistic.

She sighed. How difficult it was to drive self out of one's thoughts, for was there anything as interesting in the whole of the wonderful world as one's self, one's miserably unworthy, puny self?

Hadassah had truly said, "We have two selves . . . what armed enemies they are!" Surely she, Margaret, had more than two selves? It seemed to her that she had a hundred, for every hour of the day and year.

Long ago, in her untroubled college days, she had been one woman, with one mind and one purpose—her intellectual work. Egypt had changed her. The great mother of the world-civilization had revealed to her some of the amazing secrets hidden in the human heart; from her immortal treasury of things good and evil she had bestowed upon her child the jewel of suffering, the pearl of passion. As a devout pupil Margaret had knelt at her knee.

In her very modern surroundings she felt quite another being from the Margaret who had seen the vision of Akhnaton in the Valley. She had allowed herself to forget that she had been instrumental in developing the psychic side of Michael's nature. The thought of it now seemed absurd; it was probable that her surroundings and her work had been accountable for the visions. Her imagination had unconsciously pictured them.

And yet there was a sound argument against this common-sense, practical view of the thing, for she had visualized almost exactly the type and individuality of a character in history of whom she was totally ignorant. Even in the modern hotel, in her everyday surroundings, she could see with extraordinary clearness the rays of light which had surrounded that head. Nothing could ever obliterate the picture of the suffering Pharaoh from her memory.

She had left the breakfast-room, and as she waited for the lift to descend, she was almost afraid that it would bring Millicent down with it from the floor above. But it did not. There was a grain of disappointment in the elements which made up Margaret's feelings as she saw that it was empty. The Lampton combative instinct demanded a fight to the finish, and an open, broad-daylight attack.