When Margaret reached her hotel she was more than astonished to hear that in her absence her brother had called to see her. He had left a message to say that he would return in half an hour.
"How long ago was that?" Margaret asked.
The very grand servant, in his elaborately-embroidered and gold laced native dress, said, "About twenty minutes ago, my lady. The gentleman said that it was important that he should see you."
"I will wait for him on the terrace," Margaret said. "Bring him to me directly he arrives."
She was so taken back by this inexplicable piece of news that she heard nothing more of what the man said. Why on earth had Freddy come to Cairo? Margaret knew that he had business which was to have kept him four more days at least in Luxor. Her first thought was that he had heard something about Michael, but she doubted if even that would have made him neglectful of his duty. With Freddy his work and the responsibility it entailed came before every other consideration. Margaret had ever been mindful of the fact that her presence in the camp was not to interfere with his work. She knew him so well, or she fancied that she did. His coming must be in some way connected with his work. Perhaps he wished to stop her carrying out the instructions which he had given her; he might have learned something in Luxor which had upset his plans.
A few minutes before the half-hour was up, Margaret saw her brother walking quickly towards the hotel. The moment she caught sight of him, she left the terrace and hurried down the street to meet him. There was no one else within sight. He was walking with his head bent and as though he was deeply immersed in thought.
When she got within speaking distance, she called out, "Oh, Freddy, what is it? Why have you come?"
His expression had convinced her that something was wrong, that something very serious had brought him to Cairo.
Freddy linked his arm in his sister's and took a deep breath before he spoke. "Chum dear," he said, "I've brought bad news for you."
"Michael's dead!" Meg stood still and dropped her brother's arm. It was a pitiful face, that paled to the lips as her eyes gazed into Freddy's.
"No, Meg, Mike's not dead."
"Then he's dying, and you're afraid to tell me!" Margaret strode forward, as if she was then and there starting off to find her dying lover. Freddy laid his hand on her arm. "Freddy, let me go!" she said impatiently. "Take me to him quickly. Wild horses won't detain me!" She shook off his hand.
"Steady, old girl. Let me tell you all about it. Mike's quite well, so far as I know. I've heard nothing about any illness."
"Then what's the matter? More lies? Hadassah Ireton doesn't believe a word of them! She is an angel—she is going to help me." Meg's head dropped; her chest rose and fell with suppressed emotion.
"Don't walk so quickly, Meg. I can't tell you while you dash on like that. Have some pity on me—I hate my job."
Meg fell back. "Well, tell me—out with it!"
"The Government has got wind of the 'site.' Michael's discovery has been anticipated. Experimentary digging has begun."
"And where is Mike?" Meg's eyes blazed.
"That is just it! He ought to have reached the hills two weeks ago, at least. While he has been idling, someone has played him false—betrayed him—informed the Government for the sake of the reward."
Meg gave a little cry. It lashed Freddy to fury against Michael; it was the cry of a crucified soul.
"It's just his casual drifting again!"
"But you didn't believe in the treasure!" Meg's loyalty was up in arms against Freddy's voice of accusation.
"I know I didn't, and it's yet got to be proved that it is there. But the fact remains that I heard from the Director of Public Works that a temporary camp has been pitched on the very site Mike was going for. The whole story is a complication of truth and fiction."
Meg spoke with difficulty. The agony at her heart was choking her. "Why have they suddenly sent excavators to that particular spot, if there is nothing there?"
"On the strength of the information given by a native."
"And what had the native found? Isn't it just too diabolical and wicked?"
"It's jolly hard lines, but if Mike had gone there straight and as quickly as he could, if he hadn't played the idiot, he'd have been there before the native who has betrayed him."
While Freddy was speaking, thoughts came to Meg of her vision of Akhnaton, of the strange and occult incidents connected with the story of the hidden treasure.
"What do you mean by playing the fool?" she said. "Have you heard from Michael? Have you any reliable ground for supposing that he played the fool?" Meg's voice was beautifully scornful.
"I've heard again, that Millicent was with him. The facts are undeniable. The whole thing makes me furious. Why couldn't he have written to me and told me, if she followed him, as you suggested? His silence condemns him."
"It makes me more than furious." Meg's voice was horrible in Freddy's ears; it was older, shriller, cruelly defiant. "It makes me furious to think how easily evil is believed of the absent, who can't defend themselves."
They strode along. Both were walking blindly forward.
"It makes me sick, sick, sick!" She flung the words out and then broke into a little cry. "Oh, Freddy, have you no faith? no trust? Is that your friendship?"
"What can I do?" he said. "I'm not blinded with love as you are. I see things dispassionately. I want to do what is best for you. Why hasn't he written? I'm quite willing to believe what Michael tells me—I don't doubt his word—but he has said nothing. This is another example of his weakness."
"Do you believe that Millicent is still with him?"
"Her dragoman who took her into the desert has returned to Luxor. I haven't seen him—he could tell us everything we want to know."
"The news came from him?" Meg's voice was a stinging reproach.
"Yes. He only remained in Luxor a few hours; he was going to his home in Assiut, but he spread the story."
There was a pause.
"He took Millicent to Michael?"
"He took her into the desert; they met."
"And because we have had no word from Michael, no explanation, you are ready to condemn him?" Meg's words were loyal, while her heart was torn with jealousy.
"Meg," said Freddy gently, "will you go home to England?"
"No." The word came sharply, abruptly.
"You promised, old girl."
"I never promised to accept the words of a dragoman against my own knowledge of Michael, against my conscience. I have another promise to keep, my promise of absolute trust."
"The dragoman can have no object in lying, and added to his report, there is the fact that if Michael had not dallied for some reason or another, he would have reached the hills long before this. He has allowed the Government to anticipate him."
"Freddy, I believe in God, and He has told me that Michael is as true to me as I am to him."
"Poor old girl!" Freddy said tenderly. "You're such a loyal old thing."
But Meg rounded on him; she was a truer Lampton than she ever suspected. "Oh, don't 'poor' me, Freddy! I can't bear it. It sounds as if I were half an imbecile, or as if Michael was a villain! I've got my wits all right—and Egypt has given me super-wits. It has shown me things beyond. If there is such a thing as conscience, then I should be sinning against mine if I doubted my lover for one instant."
"But didn't you say that the Lampton pride would not be wanting when you really discovered that Mike had taken Millicent with him?"
"And it won't be wanting, if either Mike or Millicent tell me with their own lips that they have been together on this journey. I'll start off home by the next boat."
"Oh, do be reasonable, Meg! You won't see either of them. If this thing has happened, they'll keep out of the way. That's why they are keeping silence."
"You are asking me to accept circumstantial evidence of what I call the lowest order—dragomans' gossip. Well, I simply say I won't do it."
"What about the time he has taken to reach the hills?"
"I don't pretend to understand. Mike will explain when he gets a chance. I only know that he wouldn't believe a word of the story if he heard that I had been away with six good-looking men who admired me."
Freddy gave a mirthless laugh. "There is safety in numbers, Meg. If he had the evidence you have, I wonder what he'd feel?"
"Just what I feel. I have seen Hadassah Ireton. Her husband will help me. He knew Mike; they planned this journey together."
"I wish you'd leave things alone. I asked you to."
"I can't. Michael may be ill."
"It doesn't sound like it. Bad news travels quickly."
"Look here, Freddy," Margaret said, "you haven't the slightest idea of what it feels like to be in love. When you do, you will understand. What a lot you have still to learn! You won't believe any old lie that comes along about the girl you have vowed to trust and whom you believe in as you believe in your God. As lovers we Lamptons don't deal in half measures."
"Then are you going to remain in Cairo indefinitely, waiting and waiting for Michael to come back to you, when he is away fooling with another woman?"
"Don't kill me, Freddy! I can't stand much more." A sob burst from Meg's lips. "All that's best in me trusts in Michael and all that is bad doubts and distrusts. It's the bad that is killing me. Do you understand? For pity's sake, if you care for me, don't add to the evil, don't give it the upper hand. Freddy, I need you, I need some trust to add to mine!"
"I'd kill myself if it would help you, you know I would!"
"Yes, I know it, of course I know it. I just go mad when you doubt him, Freddy, I see red. I could kill you. It's because your doubts feed my evil thoughts. I can't explain, but I know what I mean myself."
"I want to save you further pain, Meg."
"Hadassah Ireton said, which is quite true, that it is sometimes a privilege to suffer. If only you, Freddy, won't doubt Mike, I can endure almost anything. You're just a bit of myself. I can't bear you to doubt. It's like myself doubting and forgetting, forgetting the most beautiful thing in my life."
They had wandered on until they had come to the Nile Bridge. The sight of the tall masts of the native boats, silhouetted against the crimson of the evening sky, reminded Freddy that already they had gone too far. He stopped abruptly.
"We must drive back, Meg, as quickly as we can. I've my train to catch. We shall only just do it."
"Did you come to Cairo on purpose to see me?"
Freddy had signalled to a cab—an open landau, of ancient and decayed splendour, driven by two white horses. They came dashing up at a wild gallop. The native driver, in his red fez and white cotton jacket, barely gave Freddy time to jump into the carriage after Meg was seated when, with a noisy cracking of his whip, he urged the horses to a still more reckless speed.
"I had to come. I was afraid you might get the news in some horrible way. You've been a brick, but you can't think how I dreaded telling you."
"I've not been a brick. I've been horrid. I am always horrid nowadays." Meg's voice was contrite and humble.
"I like you for it. We understand each other."
"You're the dearest and best brother on earth, Freddy, and you know I think so, and yet I speak as if I hated you!"
"We're chums," he said, as he put his hand on the top of Margaret's. After that conversation became impossible. The horses were going at a mad pace, through crowded, noisy streets. Margaret was a little nervous, but she realized that there was only just time for Freddy to catch his train, if he allowed the coachman to take his own way, to drive in the arrogant native style. Every other minute she felt sure that they would run over a child or dog, or knock down a foot passenger. It seemed to be the privilege of anyone who could afford to pay for a cab to drive over pedestrians if they got in the way; the humble poor were of less account than the dust beneath the horses' feet. The coachman's absurd cries to "clear the way" pierced Margaret's ears without amusing her, while the cracking of the whip almost drove her to despair. The noise and crowd of idle human beings was bewildering to her nerves after the silence of the desert.
At last they reached the station, where they had to say good-bye hurriedly and regretfully.
"I'll let you know," Margaret said, "what Michael Ireton advises. Remember, I'm all right. Don't worry. You've been a dear. It was awfully good of you to come."
"Good-bye, old girl," he said. "Take care of yourself."
As Meg walked back to her hotel, she comforted herself with the assurance that Michael Ireton would find some way to help her. She visualized to herself repeatedly the personality of Hadassah and her expression of absolute confidence in Michael's Amory's loyalty and honour. Her finer senses told her that it was natures like Hadassah's, natures keenly sensitive to purity and uprightness, which could judge people like Mike justly. The magnet of righteousness draws kindred souls together. If Hadassah had doubted, then indeed she might have listened to Freddy's counsel. Freddy was just and splendid in his way, but Margaret did not blind herself to the fact that his knowledge of human nature, even though it was singularly correct in most instances, was derived from a more material source of evidence. His judgment was governed by his practical common sense rather than by his super-senses. Hadassah's nature was tuned to the inner consciousness of human beings, as a musician's ear is tuned to the harmonies and discords of music, even to the hundredth part of a tone.
If a woman like Hadassah had doubted Michael, or given a moment's thought to the gossip of the dragoman, Margaret's faith might have been troubled. But as matters stood at present, she knew that she herself had a finer understanding of Michael than Freddy possessed, in spite of his years, as compared to her own months of friendship. She tried to strengthen herself against the invasion of unhappy thoughts by thinking over in her mind all the various objects of beauty she had seen in the Iretons' house. The picture of the cool courtyard, with the dark-leaved lebbek-tree reaching up to the romantic balcony, brought a smile to her lips. It was such an ideal setting for an Eastern Romeo and Juliet. Busy as she knew the Iretons' life to be, their mediaeval home suggested the repose and the charm and the romance of Love in Idleness!
To assure herself of her complete confidence in the arguments which she had used to Freddy and of her own heart's happiness, as a thing widely apart from her anxiety, Margaret dressed herself in her most becoming frock that same evening for her first appearance at the hoteltable d'hôte. She sat at a little table by herself, in the enormous dining-room. The season was far advanced; the tourists in Egypt had all returned to Cairo, there to disperse to their various countries.
There were many fair and attractive women in the room, of widely varied types—Americans, Austrians and English: that was how they took their place in the scale of beauty in Margaret's opinion. Amongst them all there was perhaps no one who was more commented upon and admired than herself. Sitting by herself, for one thing, provoked curiosity, while for another her claim to good looks had the high quality of distinguished individuality; in an assembly of well-dressed women of the world, Margaret, like Hadassah, could never be overlooked.
She had been out of the world of fashion and frivolity for so long that the gay scene interested her and made it easy for her to temporarily put aside her troubles. She had lived in the Valley, studying the lives and customs of lost civilizations until they had become a part of her own life. Now she found it amusing to be back again amongst the men and women of to-day, people who were, as she reminded herself, in their own little way creating history. They were as typical of the world's evolution in the twentieth century as the Pharaohs in their tombs and the painted figures of men and women and dancing girls on the temple and tomb-walls were typical of the world's evolution three thousand years ago.
After dinner she drank her coffee in the fine lounge of the hotel, under tall palm-trees, while a Hungarian band played music which stirred her blood and pulses. It made her feel very much alone and a little desolate. She had been happier before the music began; it made calls upon her heart, it gave re-birth to a thousand wants. Her sense of loneliness increased as she watched more than one pair of lovers gradually drift off and settle themselves down somewhere out of sight. She heard one radiant couple making arrangements for going to see the Pyramids by moonlight.
She had never seen the Pyramids or the Sphinx. Perhaps when she was staying with the Iretons, they would take her to see them. She had certainly no desire to make the excursion alone.
As she thought of the Pyramids, and Mike's association with them, a wave of hate and rage spread over Margaret like a blush. She wondered if any of the curious eyes of the tourists had noticed it; she had been conscious of being freely criticized all the evening. She looked about her quickly. The place had become almost devoid of young people; only some elderly men and women were left, reclining in big chairs. With the absence of youth, Margaret's spirits sank very low; it was not bracing to her strained nerves and lonely condition to sit with the elderly invalids and watch them passing the time away in a semi-dozing condition until it was the recognized hour for going to bed.
To be true to Michael she must not allow herself to grow despondent. Hadassah Ireton had gone through far greater trials and suffering than she was facing, and what had been her reward? Margaret visualized her married life, her expression of happiness as she greeted her, her pride in the small son who was toddling at her side. It was a condition of life well worth suffering and waiting for.
When the clock struck ten, Margaret rose from her retired seat. She felt justified in going early to bed after such a long and trying day. There was nothing better to do. As she entered the lift which was to take her up to her floor, she suddenly found herself face to face with Millicent Mervill.
She was so wholly unprepared for the meeting that she never afterwards was able to understand why she did not lose her presence of mind. It is on such occasions that the metal we are made of is put to the test.
The two women faced each other in silence. The next moment the lift went swiftly up, and as it went, Margaret had but one clear thought—that she would stop at the first floor and get out; she could walk up the remaining flight of stairs. The next second she realized that that would be a foolish and weak thing to do. It was her duty to speak to Millicent and learn the cause of the scandal from her own lips. She owed it to Michael. She must do the one thing which she could to clear his name of the dishonour of which Freddy accused him.
Millicent was getting out at the first landing. The lift shot up so quickly that the silence between them had been of the briefest. Margaret left the lift at the same moment and again the two women stood facing one another, as the gate closed behind them and the lift began its downward journey.
"Good evening," Millicent said gaily. "I never expected to have the pleasure of seeing you in Cairo." A smile which might have hidden any meaning lit up her eyes and showed the perfection of her mouth and teeth. But even at that critical moment, Margaret was conscious that her beauty had lost something of its radiance. Had her youth, which had seemed eternal, vanished at last? Had it left her as rats leave a sinking ship? Had the gods recalled what had already tarried too long?
"Good-evening," was all that Margaret managed to say. Her heart was floundering in a sea of anger; her mind was struggling for wise words, words which would drag the truth from the pretty lips, playing over still prettier teeth. She was determined not to let the opportunity slip.
But Millicent was too quick. She left Margaret no chance to take the lead in the conversation; she seized and kept it to the end. Margaret should know just as much as she, Millicent, wished her to know, and no more. She meant to enjoy herself; the devout Margaret was going to receive some nasty knocks.
"How is our mystic?" she asked lightly.
The word "our" instantly deprived Meg of her resolution to speak tactfully and even hypocritically, if it was necessary. Millicent did not wait for her tardy answer. Meg's expression had flamed the devil's fire of mischief in her callous heart.
"Have you heard from him since I left him?"
Here Margaret's pride helped her. She threw up her chin; a trick with her when her fighting spirit was roused.
"I really don't know. I forget how long ago it is since you saw him."
"I left him almost within sight of his promised land, of his KingSolomon's mine. Has he found it? Were the jewels very wonderful?"
The woman's audacity amazed Margaret, while it infuriated her, but thanks to the blood of her ancestors, a fight always braced her nerves and quickened her wits; it was tenderness which brought tears. She was not going to allow the brazen little beast to know or see what her words meant to her; she was not going to tell her of Michael's disappointment. If she had betrayed him and robbed him of Akhnaton's treasure, she was not going to let her batten on the suffering she had caused, so she said:
"My brother has just heard that information of the discovery has come to the Minister of Public Works. The Government has sent out some men to make the preliminary excavations, so I suppose it is all right."
Millicent's eyes gleamed. Something like sympathy pleasure beautified them; for a moment her desire to wound the girl who had robbed her of the lover she desired was forgotten; it was lost in surprise.
"Then Mike was right? He has really discovered his precious treasure, his legacy of Akhnaton? I'm so glad!" She paused. "I never really believed he would, did you? It seemed to me mere moonshine, a delightful excuse for a desert romance."
Margaret was still more amazed. What an actress the woman was! If she had not known her true character, she would have believed that she was innocent of the base treachery of which she was guilty.
"Yes, it would appear so," she said coldly. "But we know very little—we have only had the official news of the discovery. His letters will tell us more. Does the news surprise you?"
Millicent looked at Margaret keenly. Their eyes met as bitter antagonists. Millicent supposed that Margaret thought that Michael would have written to her and told her the news; she answered accordingly.
"His breathless letters—you know how he writes—are probably resting in some desert village. They'll come along all right. But I'm awfully glad the dear man hasn't found a mare's nest, aren't you?" She spoke again quickly, before Margaret had time to answer. "What does your brother say about it? Isn't he surprised? He thought it was all tommy-rot, didn't he? How different they are!"
"It is always difficult to tell what Freddy thinks," Margaret said. "He is a very reserved person. If the whole thing turns out as Michael expected, he will be delighted and interested."
"If there is anything there at all," Millicent said, "that ought to be sufficient proof of the seer's powers—I mean, things of Akhnaton's period. The portable treasure might have been stolen—it probably was. If the saint had discovered it, why not others?"
"I have had no particulars," Meg said coldly. She felt certain thatMillicent was pumping her for her own pleasure.
"Your brother never mentioned the King Solomon's mine of gold and the jewels," Millicent said laughingly; "yet even my men were talking about it quite openly on my homeward journey. Mike and I were so careful—we never mentioned a word about it. To all outward appearances we were merely journeying in the desert for pleasure; our objective was to be the tomb where Akhnaton's body was buried. They must have learned all about it from the holy man—tents have ears. You have heard all about our meeting with the 'child of God,' of course?" She searched Margaret's eyes as she spoke and then added lightly: "I should like to have seen Mike in his strange counting-house, counting out his money, shouldn't you?"
Margaret very nearly said, "You little liar, get out of my sight!" The sudden temptation to shake her was almost past enduring; it was all she could do to keep her hands off her and remain silent. She had heard from the woman's own lips what she had told Freddy she never would hear; her promise to him flashed through her mind. Her doom was sealed. The psychological and archaeological interest of what Millicent had told her did not penetrate her brain; even her reference to their meeting with a "child of God" fell on deaf ears. Millicent had asked her if she had shared Michael's beliefs in the occult and mystic interpretation of the discovery, in tones which implied that she did not expect Margaret to understand or sympathize with that side of Michael Amory's character.
Margaret managed to keep her wits about her. The agony which she was enduring must at all costs be hidden from her enemy.
With a calm that surprised her own ears, she said. "Did you enjoy your time in the desert? Why did you return before the eventful discovery? If you had waited, you would have seen Mr. Amory wading in the historic jewels."
Millicent was very quick. She had arranged in her own mind how much and how little she was going to tell Margaret. It was to be enough to ruin her happiness and trust in her lover, enough to rob Michael of the woman who had robbed her of him; but not enough to let her know why she, Millicent, had flown from the camp.
"Oh, we both loved it!" she said. "We had some unique and strange experiences, things we shall never forget. But I had to come back, my time was up. I am leaving for England on the twenty-eighth—I have so much to pack and collect."
"It is getting very warm," Margaret said. "The tourists are all going back."
"Oh, I never mind the heat—I like it—but unfortunately I have to go home—money matters. I've been rather lucky, in a manner—a rich relation in Australia died a few months ago and I have just heard that he has left me a nice little bit."
Millicent's words instantly confirmed Margaret's suspicions. The unscrupulous woman had secured at least a part of the buried gold. Margaret wondered if it would be wise to attack her on the subject. She refrained; instinct cautioned her. With Margaret it was always a case of—When in doubt, hold your tongue.
"What a fortunate coincidence!" she said coldly. "How very odd!"
Millicent looked at her sharply. What did her words mean? What was she driving at? Margaret never spoke unthinkingly.
"I don't understand what coincidence you refer to, but certainly I've been lucky as regards legacies and money. I've always been fortunate about money, but there is a saying that money goes where money is, and that if you get one legacy you will get three. I really could have done without the last windfall. I have enough of this world's goods for a lone woman—if I had some babies it would be different."
There was a note of sadness in Millicent's words which would have appealed to Margaret if she had not known what a perfect actress the woman was. How was she to believe anything she said after what she had done?
"You needn't let it be a burden to you." Margaret pretended to laugh. "There are other people's babies who have none. There are plenty of ways of disposing of super-wealth. Why not pay for the costs of some of the Egyptian exploration work next autumn? It would interest you and . . ." Margaret paused. ". . . it would be a suitable way of spending the gold. It would repay Mr. Amory."
In saying these words, Margaret felt that she was going as near to the point as she dared. As she said them, Millicent's eyes hardened. She had spoken with sincerity when she said that she could have done without her uncle's fortune, for there were moments when she deceived herself into believing that if her grand passion for Michael had been returned, that if she had ever been loved as greatly as she felt that she herself could love, or if she had had any children, she would have been a good and noble woman. No chance of goodness had ever come her way, and she had never stepped aside to look for it.
"I don't know about repaying Mike," she said coldly. "There are some things which can never be repaid or bought."
Meg certainly got as good as she had given. "I never meant to suggest that I had so much wealth that it would be a burden to me. I think I shall find some way of spending it enjoyably." She turned to the left wing of the corridor; her bedroom lay there. "Now I must say good-night," she said, still more coolly. "I have a great deal to do." She looked down at her dress. "My luggage has never come on from Luxor—it's such a nuisance. I had to wear a 'dug-out' to-night, a blouse and skirt I wore in the desert. They have lain packed all that time—I never thought I should have to wear them again." As she spoke, she visualized her last evening in the camp, when she had given Hassan her instructions for their flitting. She had worn the blouse that same evening.
"It looks very nice," Margaret said carelessly.
"Oh, it's terrible! I didn't venture to come down totable d'hôtein it—I dined in my room. Good-night."
"You still wear your eye of Horus?" Margaret said; she had noticed the amulet the moment she saw Millicent in the lift.
"Of course! It is my most treasured possession."
Margaret longed to tell her that she knew where the bit of blue faience had been found on the day when it was lost in the hut. She burned to say, "You little prying cat, you read my diary!" instead of which she said, quite calmly:
"The Divine Eye ought to have known better than to be the cause ofMohammed Ali's telling one of his finest lies."
"What do you mean?" Millicent asked. But even as she spoke, her face paled a little. "Your language has become quite cryptic—the result, I suppose, of your work in the tombs!"
"Probably," Margaret said. "Life in the Valley has taught me many things—but first and foremost, above all others, it has shown me the power and the danger ofbaksheesh. Good-night," she added quickly. "I've been keeping you."
Millicent looked at her with steely eyes. Meg's words were not too cryptic for her comprehension. "Good-night," she said. "When I hear from Mike, I'll let you know."
When Margaret reached her room, she flung off her self-restraint. Catching up a sofa-cushion, she flung it at an imaginary Millicent; two more went flying in the same direction.
"Oh, you beast, you hateful little beast!" she cried. "I believe you have won, after all! I wanted to find out if Michael was to blame, I wanted to make you confess that you trapped and followed him into the desert! And all I succeeded in doing was to hear from your own lips what all the hateful tongues in Egypt have been screaming and shouting in my ears for weeks past!" She sank down on the low sofa. "My pride spoilt everything. I wouldn't let you know that I cared, that I didn't know a word about anything, that I have never heard a line from Michael." Her mind stood at attention; a new thought held it. The holy man! Millicent had spoken of the holy man. Was he the "child of God" who was to lead Mike to the hidden treasure? She groaned. Oh, why had she not questioned her, why had she not controlled her own anger and her pride, and learnt from Millicent a thousand things she longed to know? She had not even asked her at what definite place in the desert she had left Michael! She had asked her absolutely nothing which would help her to find him. She had only gleaned from her the one fact, the fact which made it absolutely imperative for her to return at once to England. Her pride was so cruelly injured that she accepted that fact as absolute. Even if Michael was entirely innocent of any dishonour to herself, it was impossible not to feel wounded and hurt to the quick by his silence. She had sworn to trust him, but was he not asking too much of human nature? Might he not have given a thought to the fact that Freddy and all the world would condemn him?
Of Michael's health Millicent had told her nothing. She had spoken in a manner which suggested that she had left him in the enjoyment of perfect health. Her excuses for him to Freddy had melted into thin air. How was she to tell Hadassah Ireton? Hadassah, whose complete trust had made her ashamed of Freddy.
* * * * * *
She had gone to her room early, but it was far into the night before she began to undress and get ready for bed. She was tired and unhappy and for once she allowed herself to accuse Michael. She began by saying that he had been thoughtless and neglectful, that he ought to have managed somehow to get a letter through to her as soon as Millicent appeared on the scene. She felt convinced that she would have contrived to let him hear under similar circumstances it . . . well, if she had wanted him to hear, if she had had a satisfactory explanation to offer. It was the horrible "if" which kept Margaret awake. That mustard-seed of suspicion grew and grew until its flowers of evil covered her whole world. Thought can make our heaven or our hell. Margaret's thoughts that night created no divine vision, no fair City of the Horizon.
If Millicent had come back to Cairo, because of business, surely Michael could have sent a letter by her servants, even if he had not cared to entrust it into her own hands. That was the thought which triumphed—it shed its darkness over the things of light.
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.
"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,
"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.
Margaret kept her promise to Freddy. During the three days which she spent with the Iretons nothing transpired to make it possible for her to break it. No word, either by letter or by native word of mouth, had arrived from Michael.
Even to Hadassah's generous mind, Michael Amory's conduct seemed strange and inexplicable. His silence, in a manner, condemned him as casual, even if he was not guilty. She began to wonder if he had been carried off his feet by Millicent, if he had been weak and forgetful of Margaret for a little time. Millicent would certainly have done her best to deprive him of his higher instincts and ideals. If he had been faithless to Margaret, he was the type of man who would exaggerate the sin.
When she reviewed the situation calmly, she found that there was much to be said from Freddy Lampton's standpoint, and Margaret herself was growing more and more wounded by her lover's conduct—not so much by the fact that Millicent had been in the desert with him, for she knew the woman's persistence, but by the lack of effort which he had made to explain the situation to her. Even if he had allowed himself to be carried away by Millicent's wiles, she would have forgiven him, for Margaret was very human, and she was no fool. Never had she imagined that her lover was a saint. What she felt it harder and harder every day to forgive was his silence, his want of courage, his lack of trust.
During those three days Margaret's beautiful world and life seemed to have crumbled into dust, just as she had seen the unearthed objects in Egyptian tombs crumble into atoms when the first breath of air from the desert reached them. Her contact with the world of to-day had melted her romance of the desert into thin air. It was a beautiful vision which her strange life had created; it had flourished during her short stay in the Valley. It was not suited for the practical everyday world.
While she was with the Iretons, she tried to interest herself in Hadassah's work as much as possible. She contrived very bravely to put aside her wretchedness and at least appear interested and eager.
Her dignity and self-control added greatly to Michael Ireton's admiration for her. He, too, had been struck by her resemblance to Hadassah, so her beauty appealed to him very strongly.
Hadassah and her husband allowed her to go home to England without protest. Cairo was becoming very hot for an English girl, and they both agreed that it might do Michael Amory good to learn, when he did turn up, that his conduct had hurt Margaret's pride, that she was seriously wounded. As Millicent had spoken to Margaret of Michael as being in robust health, they had banished the idea that his silence was due to illness.
Outwardly Margaret behaved as though the whole episode of her love-affair with Michael Amory was at an end. A woman's life is dog-eared by her love-affairs; this was the first in Margaret's book of life. To the Iretons she was always very insistent that there had been no formal engagement between them, that Michael had not allowed her to think of herself as bound to him in any way—for only one reason he had not considered himself justified in asking her to become his wife or to wait for him. This to the Iretons meant nothing. He had made Margaret love him—that was the essential point—and his sensibilities must have told him that with such a girl love was no light thing. He must have realized that Margaret had given him the one perfect gift in her possession, an unselfish love.
Margaret was very loyal to her lover. It was easy to be that, for in her super-senses she was convinced of his great love for her, as a thing apart from anything else. She found it wise to discuss the mystery of his silence less and less; for she knew that no one but God knows what is in our hearts, or what He has put there for our consolation, and that to all outward appearances things looked very black for Michael.
And so it came to pass that she sailed for England in the same boat as Freddy. He had hurried through his business and had managed to secure a passage, so as to look after her and be a companion to her on her disconsolate voyage.
On the journey to Marseilles, Margaret discovered qualities in Freddy's character which, even with all her love for him, she had never imagined. For her sake he contrived to hide his anger at Michael for his treatment of her, and thus express a sympathetic understanding of the temptations which had beset him. If Margaret had not suffered, he would have ignored the affair altogether, as a matter which did not concern him. Freddy was very far-seeing. Margaret had kept her promise; she had shown that in spite of her romantic love for Michael her womanly pride had not been wanting. Any opposition or harsh denouncement of her lover would have brought out the obstinacy in her Lampton character. Persecution inflames the ardour of both love and religion. Margaret had confided to Freddy the true state of her feelings—her love was perhaps even greater than ever for the tardy Michael; jealousy had invigorated and reinforced it: but her pride and her love were wounded, and until Michael wrote to her or came to her, with a full and absolute apology and a good reason for his silence, she was determined not to play the part of a woman whose love would submit to any sort of casual treatment.
Freddy was well content. Time would settle things; Margaret was very young; she was scarcely aware yet of the possibilities that were in her own nature, of the things which can make life worth living, as apart from love and its passions. Love had buried her under an avalanche of its mystery and revelations.
Their journey home was as uneventful as it was surprising, for summer on the Mediterranean, where there is no spring, opened Margaret's eyes to a new phase of Nature's beauty. There was so much to see, and Freddy was such an excellent companion, that the time passed far more quickly and happily than Margaret could have believed possible. Did she know that it was the guarded light, which dispersed her brooding thoughts, thoughts which tried to spoil the beauty of the fairest scenes she had ever seen?
It was a voyage of solace and healing. As they sat together, the brother and sister, idly watching the spell of light resting on an archipelago of dreaming islands, or sailed out of the Bay of Naples on a morning of tender unreality, they little dreamed that in her womb the world was breeding a hellish massacre of God's highest creatures, a wholesale slaughter of His children; that that same summer's sun was to fall on fields of crimson, dyed with the blood of civilized nations, precious blood drawn from the veins of patriots and heroes by the lies and lust of a war-mad king.
Ischia, lost in its ancient sleep, cradled in the beauty of the world's fairest waters, was to be waked with the bugles of war. From her mountain heights and her seagirt fields she was to send forth her sons, to fight until they became drunk with the smell of blood.
How little did either Margaret or Freddy dream that they were gazing for the last time together upon a land of dreams, upon a world of peace! As they sat and marvelled at a world which under a summer sun seemed as fair as heaven and as pure as an angel's dream, they little realized that Europe nursed and flattered a people more steeped in iniquity and eager for licentious cruelty than any nation recorded in the world's darkest story. The primitive barbarities of uncivilized races, and the war-atrocities of ancient Egypt and Assyria, which were familiar to Margaret, and against which Akhnaton had come to preach his mission of peace, were as nothing compared to the acts which were to be committed by a nation which had preached the mission of Jesus for a thousand years, and had carried His doctrines into the farthest corners of the earth.
In the years to come that journey from Alexandria to Marseilles was to be one of the greatest consolations of Margaret's life.
In the days to come, when Margaret, knowing all things and enduring all things, looked back upon the journey, it comforted her to think of how much Freddy had enjoyed his well-earned rest and how eagerly he had looked forward to his holiday in Scotland.
* * * * * *
The war, which has set a date in England from which every event of importance counts and will be counted by her people for generations to come, had not been whispered or dreamed of by ordinary people. Like Ischia, England was still dreaming and trusting. Her ideals of honour forbade that she should doubt the honour of a sister-nation, bound to her by the closest ties of blood and sympathy.
When Freddy and Margaret landed in England they went their separate ways.
Margaret, at the outbreak of the war, at once offered her services as a V.A.D. Three months later she was working as a pantry-maid in a private hospital. Her work was very hard and deadly dull, but she had been promised that after working for a time as pantry-maid, she should be allowed to help in the wards. When Freddy left for the Front she was able to say good-bye during her "two hours off."
Fresh air and sunshine, after the dark basement-pantry in which she worked, seemed to her sufficient enjoyment and all the pleasure she wanted. She seldom did anything in these hours but sit on a bench in the garden-square near her hospital and rest her tired feet. For the first month they were so swollen that she could not get on her walking shoes. By four o'clock she was back in her pantry again, setting out cups and saucers on little trays and laying the tea for the staff. Her work was lonely and unrecognized.
After she had washed up and put away the cups which had been used for afternoon tea and also the cups which had been used for the last meal of the day, which was served at seven o'clock in the wards, she went home to her quiet room, in a house on the other side of the square. It was an old house, which had known better days. The locality always carried Margaret's mind back to the gay world into whose society Becky Sharp so persistently pushed her way.
If Margaret was not happy, she was far too busy to be unhappy. She had, except for those two afternoon hours of rest, no time to think; and as thoughts make our heaven or our hell, Margaret lived in an intermediate state, for she had none. Her physical tiredness dominated all other sensations.
The war dominated her life; it drilled her, and drove her, and exacted the last fraction of her endurance and courage. It chased personal things away into the dim background of her life. When she thought of the Valley and her experiences there, it was as if she was visualizing, not her own past life, but some story which she had read and remembered with the sharp, clear memory, which never leaves us, of our childhood's days.
With Margaret, as with most people, the war opened up a completely new phase of mental as well as physical experiences. Nor could her thoughts ever be the same again. Margaret's phase resembled the state of a patient gradually recovering from a serious illness, an illness in which she has faced the true proportions of the things belonging to this life, and the triviality of human tragedies as they had existed before the war. Her life had begun all over again. The war was remaking it. After a serious illness or a shattered love-affair no woman can take up life at exactly the same standpoint as before.
Margaret found it impossible to imagine personal ambitions and personal amusements ever forming a part of her life again. Happiness brought scorn with the very mention of it. The excitement and the daily-accumulating list of horrors which shocked the unsuspecting people of England during the first few months of the war, must be vividly in the reader's thoughts while he pictures Margaret in her life as a pantry-maid, a physically-weary pantry-maid, in a vast house in London which had been converted into a hospital. She was only one of the many girls in London in the various homes and hospitals who were drudging with aching limbs and loyal hearts from morning until night.
She preferred being pantry-maid to lift-maid, which was the only other post in the house which she had been offered. Taking visitors up and down in a lift all day long seemed to her more monotonous than washing up cups and saucers which the wounded drank out of, and scrubbing boards and washing out cupboards. Margaret was only doing her humble bit, a bit which required few brains and little education; a bit which necessitated a good deal of sturdy grit and devotion. Not a soul in the house knew nor cared anything about the life which she had led before the war, and her college record was of less account than the fact that she looked practical and strong. She had been given the post on the strength of her physical perfection rather than her proficiency as a V.A.D.
During the first three months she heard fairly often from Freddy, who was cheerfully enduring what thousands of young Englishmen endured during the early days of training.
If this is a war of second-lieutenants, Freddy was an excellent specimen of the men who have won renown. His physique laughed at hardship; his practical mind adored the order and method which is essentially a part of military efficiency. His work in Egypt, far as it seems removed from modern warfare, served a good purpose when trench-digging and planning became a part of his training.
October had come and still no news had reached him of Michael, nor had Margaret had any word of her lover through the Iretons. Freddy was comforting himself with the assurance that the war had satisfactorily driven him out of Margaret's mind. She seldom mentioned his name in her letters, which were as brief and matter-of-fact as his own.
Sometimes in the busy London streets, and in crowded omnibuses, a vision of the Valley and the smiling Theban hills would rise before her eyes, but it would fade away and become as unreal as the Bible story of the world's creation.
Physical exhaustion made it possible for her to see these visions of the Valley, and the stars in the Southern heavens, with no throbbing in her veins or sense of Michael's lips pressed on her own. Physical labour leaves little expression for fine sentiment and imagination.
* * * * * *
On the morning of the day when Margaret was to see Freddy off to the Front, she experienced a curious re-birth of personal existence; she was a partner in the world's agony. Since her work had begun she had lived like a machine; she was outside the great multitude of the elect; she had no one belonging to her in immediate danger. She had almost envied the personal anxiety of those who had their dearest at the Front.
Having no right to indulge in personal troubles which were entirely outside the subject of the war and the world's welfare, she had ceased to have any existence at all outside her dull duties as pantry-maid. But on the day of Freddy's departure she had a curious fluttering in her pulses, and a breathless excitement was in the background of all that she did. She found her hands trembling when she placed the cups in their saucers, or poured milk into the jugs.
Freddy's going was to link her to the great brotherhood. The consciousness of his danger would be like the weight of an unborn child under her heart. He was husband and father and lover to her now; he seemed to be taking with him to France the last remnant of her girlhood.
At Charing Cross she found the khaki-clad figure. He was waiting for her below the clock. His men, and hundreds of others, were sitting about at rest, on the few seats which had been provided for soldiers going to the Front, or on the floor. Most of the men were accompanied by proud and tearful relatives or lovers. It was an affecting and typical scene—a peaceful country suddenly torn and driven by the throes and novelty of war.
Margaret had already witnessed such scenes several times. It always left her wondering how any order or method came out of such a bewildering mass of hastily-organized effort.
Freddy looked so handsome in his uniform that Margaret's heart felt bursting with tragic pride. Nothing was too good to die for England, but surely, surely Freddy was too beautiful to be blinded or disfigured by all the hellish contrivances which the brutalized enemy had proved themselves past masters in devising? Even in Egypt he had not been more sunburned, and never had his hair looked so adorably bright and youthful. Margaret could think of nothing but his beauty; it seemed to burst upon her suddenly and unexpectedly.
Freddy was conscious of her pride and admiration, but being true Lamptons, their greeting of one another was characteristically brief. It was the first time that Freddy had seen his sister in her V.A.D. uniform; his eyes took in all her points with one quick glance. She looked clean and slight and attractive, and conspicuously well-bred. Her abundant hair showed to advantage under her blue hat, while her teeth and her eyes seemed to Freddy remarkably beautiful. A V.A.D. uniform is not becoming, but if a girl is striking-looking, it accentuates her good points; frumps and mediocrities it extinguishes altogether.
"Come and have some tea," Freddy said. "I'm frightfully thirsty."
Margaret walked off with him proudly. He was her own brother, the Freddy she had worked with so long and so intimately in the little hut in Egypt, this alert, dignified soldier. The war was in its infancy; women were still thrilled by khaki, and extraordinarily proud of their men who wore it. Margaret felt so proud of Freddy that she was a little awed by him. In her heart she was kneeling at his feet, while in her subconscious mind there was a prayer, that his beauty and youth might not be spoilt, that his splendid manhood might be given back to England—it had other work to do.
Her tea, which Freddy had ordered in the large tea-room at Charing Cross Station, proved very difficult to swallow. Something filled her throat; it almost choked her, something which was a strange mixture of pride and tears and happiness. She had no desire to eat or drink; she was quite content to sit still. All she wanted to do was just to be near Freddy and look at him.
In this last half-hour, perhaps the last she would ever spend with him, there seemed to be nothing important enough to say. She certainly could not speak of the things which were in her heart. When people realize that they are together for perhaps the last time on earth, is there anything which is more eloquent than silence?
It was Freddy who came to the rescue; he talked to save Margaret's dignity. With his keen eye and appreciation of her character, he knew the fight she was making for self-control. His talk was of his men and of his life as an officer in the Army, and of the politics of the day. When he spoke of Ireland and of the satisfactory way in which she was behaving, their eyes met.
The question in Margaret's eyes was answered by a shake of his head and an immediate change of topic.
"Are you liking your work?" he said quickly.
"It's not thrilling, but it's doing my bit."
"Splendid!" he said, and Margaret knew that he understood.
A little silence followed, and then Freddy said, in rather a shamed voice, "Look here, Meg, we'd better be practical. I've left all my things in order—if I don't come back, you won't have any difficulty. Of course, all I've got will be yours. There are a few things I know you'll always look after, things I specially value."
Meg's throat was bursting and her lips began to quiver, but she choked back her emotions and regained her self-control. It came to her quite suddenly, just after speech had seemed hopeless.
"I understand—the Egyptian things. You can trust them to me."
"I know I can," he said. "And do take care of yourself. . . . We'd better be making a move, I suppose."
They both got up and shook their uniforms free of crumbs.
"I'm jolly thankful I managed to get the work in the Valley pretty well settled before this happened."
"It was a bit of luck," Margaret said. "Doesn't it seem a shame that all that wonderful work and all intellectual life must come to a standstill, everything must be put aside for the one job that counts—the killing of human beings? That is now the one and only thing that matters; the most effectual way of killing masses of men is the problem which scientific minds have set before them!"
Freddy looked keenly at her for a moment. Was Meg still imbued with Michael's anti-war views? England was at that moment tuned to such a pitch of war-enthusiasm that there was but one popular feeling and belief—that this war was sent to cleanse and purify the world, that it was a blessing in disguise, that but for this war England would have gone to the dogs. Anyone who dared to express an opinion contrary to this myth was condemned as pro-German or unpatriotic.
Meg felt her brother's eyes questioning her. "Never fear," she said. "If I don't think that the war was necessary as the chosen means of arresting England in her downward course, I know that it has got to be fought to the finish, I know that the Allies have to prove that they will not submit to Prussian militarism dominating Europe. I never believed in the rottenness of England, and surely the spirits of our young men who are fighting ought to prove that it isn't? England decadent, indeed!"
"You're right," Freddy said. "England wasn't a bit rotten—or, at least, no rottener than she ever was, only the rottenness was all dragged into the limelight. Things are discussed in papers and from pulpits to-day which were never even spoken of between fathers and sons or husbands and wives in days gone by. If the war will stop all the absurd talk about England going to the dickens, it won't be fought for nothing. We've decried our country long enough."
They had only four minutes before they had to part. Margaret was beginning to feel numb and speechless. Were these four minutes to be the last she would ever spend with Freddy, and were they to go on talking as if he was only going back to Oxford after the long vacation?
Two more minutes passed and they had said nothing that mattered. Truly words were given to hide our thoughts!
As Margaret looked up at the clock, Freddy put his arms round her and held her closely to him. This was Meg's first tender embrace since her farewell with Michael. It was very nearly her undoing.
"Good-bye, old girl," was all that Freddy said; it was all he could say.
Meg clung to him and kissed him silently. Freddy felt her agony. It was greater than his own, for he had many responsibilities on his mind, and the excitement of actually going to take part in the "real thing." He kissed her with a tenderness which was almost a lover's.
Meg was still silent. She dared not attempt to speak; she knew that Freddy would hate tears. The next moment, after a closer hug, he put her decisively from him.
"Time's up, old girl! I must look after my men. We are very much alone, we two. I wish I could have left you in someone's care."
"I'm so glad," Meg said, a little brokenly, "so glad it's just we two. I've never had to share you with anyone—you've always been my very own."
Margaret knew that Freddy had made a covert allusion to the fact that if Michael had not failed her, she would, in the event of his death, have had a lover to comfort her. She chose to ignore his meaning, to speak as if Michael had no place in her thoughts. Freddy was not to be worried by things which were past and over. The war had made her independent.
Freddy understood perfectly. They had reached the barrier; his men were filing through the open gateway to the platform.
"Good-bye," he said again, hurriedly. "Don't wait in this awful crowd—I shan't be able to speak to you any more." His eyes looked into hers tenderly. "God bless you, Meg! I hate leaving you all alone."
"Good-bye, Freddy."
Margaret's lips said the words bravely. In her heart they expressed their old and grander meaning.
She had turned her back on the khaki-clad men who were filing on to the departure-platform. Her silent prayer mingled with hundreds of others, travelling from proud, torn hearts, to the listening ear of the Master of that which is ordained.