Some few days later a letter arrived for Margaret from Hadassah Ireton. It contained interesting and surprising news. Michael Ireton had been thrown in close contact with one of the excavators who had formed the camp in the hills behind Tel-el-Amarna—they were now both employed in the same Government office in Assiut.

From the excavator Michael Ireton had learned that the secret police had traced the movements of the native who had given the Government the information about the chambers in the hills, and had discovered him. But, as bad luck would have it, he was ill with smallpox and incapable of giving any information. The man had died without recovering consciousness. The excavators had become more and more convinced that he had stolen the treasure, and that it was now resting in its second hiding-place, awaiting, it was to be hoped, its final discovery.

If the man had recovered, his information could no doubt have been bought. To an Eastern a guinea in the hand is worth twenty in the bank.

The reason, Hadassah explained, for the excavators' belief that there had been a hidden treasure, of jewels if not of gold, was the fact that half a mile or more beyond the site of the excavation three uncut jewels of considerable value had been found in the open desert. They had been covered and hidden from sight by the drifting sand, and there they would have lain perhaps for ever but for the stumbling of a tired donkey, which was carrying a native and a huge load of forage to a subterranean village, not very far from the site of the excavation. The disturbing of the sand had exposed the jewels, which caught the sunlight and the sharp eyes of the desert traveller.

He was an old man, exceedingly honest, uncontaminated with the ways of city dwellers, so he took the jewels to the Omdeh's house and asked him if he thought that they were valuable, and if they were, what he should do with them.

The Omdeh (it was the same Omdeh who had so little credited the story of the hidden treasure when he had spoken of it to Michael) was as surprised as he was suspicious. His interest was aroused. Could these fine jewels have been dropped by the thief who had burgled the tomb? These were his thoughts, although Hadassah did not know it.

He at once carried them off to the Government camp in the hills. The excavators pronounced them to be ancient stones of great value.

The other reason for their belief that the treasure had been stolen was the fact that the inner chamber, in which they had found absolutely nothing, had obviously been built with a view to holding objects of great value. It had all the qualities of a royal treasury. The inscription on the wall spoke of it as "the treasure-house of Aton." That no ancient plunderer had entered this chamber, which the heretic King had cut out of the rook under the hills behind his city, was obvious. There had been practically no excavating to be done, in the sense in which Margaret thought of excavating, because the chambers were all in a state of perfect preservation; none of them were blocked up with rubbish. Once the entrance had been opened up—and this had been done by the native who had discovered the site—they met with little difficulty.

The entrance had been so skilfully hidden, that the excavators wondered how it had happened that the ignorant native who gave the information had discovered it (this Hadassah considered extremely interesting and convincing from Michael's point of view) and what had put him on the track of the hidden treasure.

These questions, Hadassah said, her husband had refrained from answering. He considered that the treasure, in its second hiding-place, belonged to Michael, that it must remain there until he found it. Michael Ireton had listened to all that the excavator had to tell and had held his tongue on the subject of Mr. Amory's expedition; the psychical part of it would probably have called forth much derision and scoffing.

Hadassah ended her letter by congratulating Margaret on the fact that the treasure, whether it was great or small, did exist, that it was an actual fact. The finding of the jewels proved that Michael's theories and occult beliefs were justified. "And after the war you will be able to go with him on his second pilgrimage, for certainly the spirit of Akhnaton has saved the treasure for him. What the world calls chance has preserved the King's legacy from profane hands."

* * * * * *

The letter was written from the Fayyum, where Hadassah was staying with her boy. Her constant visits to this beautiful oasis had wrought great changes in the house in which her cousin Girgis had spent the greater part of his life. Her aunt and cousin had, with native quickness, learned to speak English quite fluently, and Hadassah had, by her tact and sympathy, helped to develop their lives and intellects. The household was scarcely recognizable as the one in which, only a few years ago, she and Nancy had endured a terrible half-hour at afternoon-tea.

Hadassah often wished that Girgis could have seen the development and change which the widening influence of Western ideas had brought about in his old semi-native, semi-European home.

In all things relating to the war it was an ardently pro-English household, which, ever since its outbreak, had become a veritable institution for Coptic war-workers. Veiled figures hurried to it, carrying their knitting, proud and pleased to be imitating the efforts of the European ladies in Egypt, and knit they did from morning until night, with the patience and endurance of the uncomplaining East.

Hadassah's letter greatly disturbed Margaret. If it had only come before Freddy was killed, how she would have gloried in it, how delightful it would have been to tell him that even a scientific body of excavators had come to the conclusion that a treasure had been laid up by the religious fanatic—for that was Freddy's summing-up of Akhnaton—that the seer's vision had again proved true!

But now she had no one to rejoice with. Freddy had been taken from her, and Michael was lost, and there was not a creature in all her world who would care one brass farthing about the strange materializing of Michael's spiritualistic theories. All that she cared most about she had to subdue and crush back. Probably Freddy, in his new life, was understanding and sympathizing, for she knew now with a nervous certainty that the veil is very thin.

Hadassah had said in her letter, when referring to the death of the native, "This sounds as if Millicent's servants had played her false. The police report that she never reached the hills, so whether her dragoman deliberately took her off the track, and allowed one of her servants to go to the hills and secure the treasure, remains a mystery which may never be solved. But one thing is pretty clear—that her cavalcade was never seen in that part of the desert, for, as you know, the drifting sand in Egypt carries information; it conceals and reveals many things undreamed of in our Western philosophy."

As Margaret read these lines she cursed her own stupidity with a bitter curse. If she had used a little more tact and shown less jealous rage, she could have learnt from Millicent all which now so baffled them. She could easily have discovered if she had ever reached the hills.

Margaret was rereading the letter in her off-hours. Her first reading of it had been very hurried, for it had arrived by the first post, and she had only found time to devour it with eager eyes, eyes which searched its pages for one precious item of news. She was scarcely conscious of her desire for news of Michael's whereabouts. There was always the hope, unexpressed even to herself, that he had written to the Iretons. If he really was at the Front, surely he would have told them? But the letter contained no such information.

Her disappointment was, however, drowned in surprise and pride. With one fell swoop the letter had obliterated the passion and obsession of war which had held her in its clutches. It made her forget, for a little time, at least, that such a country as Germany existed. Her mind was again vivified with visions of the desert and the various scenes which Hadassah's letter suggested. Flashing before her eyes was the open desert, the unbroken light, and the stumbling donkey, heavily-laden and meekly submissive, with the gleaming gems, betrayed by the rays of Aton. She could visualize the astonished native fingering them and holding them up to the light; the sunlight, Akhnaton's symbol of divinity, was to bear testimony to the fact that the bright objects which had caught the Arab's eyes were beautiful and rich-hued gems, that they were indeed a portion of the treasure which he had hidden from the avarice of the priests of Amon, who set up graven images and worshipped false gods.

For the first time since she had been doing the work of a pantry-maid, Margaret set out the tea-trays and washed up the cups in an automatic, aloof manner. Her material body was busy in the hospital-pantry, while spiritually she was far away. Visions rose and faded before her eyes in rapid succession, but the one which she saw oftenest was the look of surprise and smiling incredulity on Freddy's face. The cry in her heart was for his sympathy, for his knowing, for his congratulations on the wonderful piece of news. Why could he not have been allowed to know it while he was still alive on this earth and able to talk to her? She wanted to be personally and materially close to him while he read the letter.

She longed for that more ardently and whole-heartedly than anything else; she hungered for it even more fiercely than the coming back of Michael, whose return into her life she was convinced would eventually happen. Whether it would be for her happiness or otherwise she was ignorant.

When she thought of his coming and of her first meeting with him, her pride rose up in arms, her mind was devastated with embarrassment. The meeting would open up old wounds, which she had imagined were healed. There she had been mistaken; they were like the wounds of a patient which appear to be healed while he lies at rest in the hospital, but which break out again when he resumes his normal life. The war had drugged Margaret's senses.

She had curiously little fear for Michael as a soldier, for whenever she thought of him as one, as fighting at the Front, she saw the bright light surrounding him, and disarming his amazed opponents.

During the short time which Freddy was at the Front, how different her thoughts had been! His beauty and ability seemed to say to her, as she watched him on that memorable afternoon at the station, "Whom the gods love die young." He seemed to typify to her England's brave and beautiful young whom the war chose for its victims. The wages of the war were England's youth and devotion. She knew that much as Freddy loved his work and enjoyed his life, he would be the last to grudge his death. It was she herself who so ardently wished that he had died in action; that his brains and ability had been given a chance; that he could have done as he would have wished to do, taken a life for a life; that he could avenge in honest warfare the hideous death of his comrades.

This letter from Hadassah made Margaret realize the awful fact that Freddy was dead as nothing else had done, that his death meant that she could never, never again consult him, or speak to him, or hope to hear from him. It was not only a case of patience and the distance of half the world between them; it was a case of never, never again on this earth. She had scarcely known the meaning of death until this starvation for his sympathy revealed itself to her. The awful difference between mere distance and death had escaped her. Hundreds of men were dying, but death was talked of unconvincingly, superficially.

Now, by some strange means, she suddenly saw the years of doing without Freddy stretching out before her. The Valley where his work lay would never see him again. His brains and extraordinary energy were lost to the world; his archaeological work would be taken over by others.

The pent-up tears which Margaret had not shed when she received the news of his death, or during all the busy days which followed it, mingled themselves with the unrestrained weeping which Nature sent to save her overwrought system. She cried uninterruptedly, until the urgency of tears subsided. She dried her eyes and braced herself up. Her weeping had stopped suddenly; it had exhausted itself.

It seemed to her that she could almost hear a voice repeating to her a sentence out of Hadassah's letter. It was strikingly like Hadassah's own voice. "Try to remember that your wonderful brother is still doing his bit. He is working hard, wherever he is—be sure of this, for it is what he would wish."

* * * * * *

Margaret carried this thought in her mind as she returned to her pantry. Hadassah was right. Freddy was working; wherever he was, he was busy, for he could not be happy if he was not working and helping on the cause of the Allies. Freddy had been one of the few enthusiasts in the early days of the war who had never pretended, even to himself, that England's primary object in declaring war against Germany was to avenge the devastation of Belgium. He knew that England had to enter it to save herself and France from a similar devastation.

When she was busy at work again, Margaret said to herself, "Of all the strange things which have happened during the last six months, perhaps the strangest of all is the fact that in all the wide world, the only human being to whom I should dream of applying for help or for sympathy in the things that matter is Hadassah Ireton, Hadassah the Syrian, whose marriage with an Englishman of good family would have so shocked and horrified me not so very long ago!"

A smile of amusement changed the expression of her face. She was thinking of Hadassah as she really was, and of the outcast Hadassah as she would have pictured her. The smile lost itself in the shame with which the memory of her ignorance and prejudice filled her. How well Hadassah and her husband could afford to forget the narrow-mindedness and the conceit of it all!