"I suppose because I"m so happy. As soon as ever you can," Margaret said, "take up some work which necessitates using all your brain, all your energy. You will become so interested in what you are doing that you will forget your troubles. I had no time to grieve over mine when I was working in the hospital. At night I was so tired out that I went to sleep as soon as my head was on the pillow. The atmosphere of work, the awfulness of this war, makes personal things seem very trivial--one grows ashamed of them."
"You are trying to give me hope," Millicent said. "It is so big and kind of you, but honestly, I only came here to tell you about your lover, not to talk about my hideous self. What does it matter what I do? You were always a worker--I was not."
"Well, you have told me about Michael, and now I can at least try to help you. I have seen the effect of almost a year of the war on the idle women of England. It is wonderful! And we used to be called superfluous!" Margaret laughed proudly.
"You believe me? You know that I am not lying? that I never reached the hills? that I never knew that Michael had not discovered the treasure?" Millicent had gone back to the original object of her visit. What Margaret had advised seemed to her impossible.
As she said the last words, the door opened and Michael entered the room. He had heard Millicent"s voice. His eyes were fixed on Margaret. The tableau created by his unexpected entrance was tense, painful.
Millicent turned her head away and hid her face in her hands. Her first thought was that he must not see her face. She flung herself down on the sofa.
Margaret became deadly pale, but remained motionless. Michael looked from her to Millicent with an expression of horrified surprise on his face. He had expected to see her in all her perfection of toilet and looks, her shining head, the "golden lady," instead of which a bundle of crepe, a mere armful, something soft and black, lay face downwards on the sofa before him.
"What are you doing here?" he said sternly. "Haven"t we seen the last of you yet?"
Margaret put up her hands as if to ward off his words. Her own happiness had made her feel more pity than anger for the miserable woman, who for probably the first time in her life was trying to act honourably and courageously. The security of love made her wondrous kind.
"What has she come for?" Michael demanded. But for his sunburn, his face would have been as white as Margaret"s own. The sight of Millicent"s cowering figure brought back to him, with the quickness of light, the evening in the desert when he had flung her from him in his agony of temptation.
"She came to give us some information, Mike. Tell him, Millicent, why you have come."
Millicent took no notice of Margaret"s words. She was crouching on the sofa, her face still buried in her hands.
"No, no," she moaned, when Margaret again urged her to speak. "I only wanted to tell you. Ask him to go away--do, please, beg him to go. If he wants you I will disappear and never come back again. I have said all I have to say."
"I am going to stay here," Michael said, "until I hear what you came to say. Was it necessary to come?" He looked to Margaret for his answer.
"It was better," Margaret said. "She never reached the hills, she never saw the treasure."
Michael started. "Go on," he said. "That is not all--she need not have come to tell us that. I never accused her; I never believed it.
I thought that after all she did do, she would have had shame enough to stay away."
Millicent"s body quivered. His words lashed her.
"One of her servants ran away--he left her the same night as she left your camp," Margaret said. Again Michael saw the black figure shiver as Margaret spoke of her cowardly act. The very mention of it brought to both their eyes a vivid picture of the surroundings which had witnessed their last meeting. Millicent knew that Michael was seeing it as clearly as though they had been standing together under the golden stars, the tents dotted about on the pale night sands. She could hear the sick man reciting _suras_ from the Koran in sonorous tones.
"And she thinks he found the treasure?" Michael said the words absently, as though his mind was occupied with distant visions.
"Yes--he was a likely character to do the deed."
"Does she know anything about him--where he went to?"
"No, Mike, but I do." Margaret spoke gently. "Millicent has been very ill. She only heard yesterday that the Government had antic.i.p.ated your discovery. She came to try and help you. She is in trouble."
Margaret"s voice told Michael more than her words.
"She scarcely deserves your pity," he said. "Only her own heart knows how she has tricked us both . . . there are some things one cannot forgive . . . Millicent knows."
The black figure slipped from the couch to the floor. "Look, I will kneel at your Margaret"s feet," she said in tones of abject shame.
"Tell her everything. Tell her what a beast she has been kind to. She ought to know." She raised her head. "I think I shall enjoy the agony--anything but this living death."
She pressed her hands on Margaret"s feet. "I am far worse than you knew! You are not made like me, you won"t even understand if he tells you the things I did."
"I don"t wish to speak of it to Margaret," Michael said. "Get up. I have seen your penitence once too often to believe in it now--get up."
"Oh," Millicent moaned, "I know, I know! You think this is just another bit of the old Millicent. It isn"t--it is true."
"Get up," Margaret said kindly. "I was only trying to be kind because . . . well, perhaps it is because I am so happy myself that I can afford to forgive you. Don"t kneel like that . . . I hate to see you.
Michael knows how little I deserve it . . . I have hated you with all my heart and soul, I have longed for my revenge."
"My G.o.d!" Michael said quickly, "I hate to see the little coward near you! How dared you come? Get up!" he said again. "And clear out! I thought we had finished with you for ever!"
Millicent dragged herself to her feet. She stood before him, a slender, nun-like figure; one of the black shawls which enveloped her had fallen to the floor.
"Go on, say all you feel--I deserve it, every word of it! I left you to your fate when you were in danger, I fled from the camp with but one idea in my head--my own safety, my desire to get as far as I could from the infection of smallpox. I carried the hateful disease with me; I am so disfigured that you must never see me. Never!" Her words ended in a low cry of self-pity.
"My G.o.d!" Michael said. "Are you speaking the truth! Did you get smallpox?" He knew that the blame was partly his.
"Yes, but don"t look at me. I can"t bear it. Anything but that, oh not that!" Michael had stooped to raise her a veil.
His eyes met Margaret"s. "Poor soul!" he said. "Poor little soul!"
"Yes, fate has punished me," Millicent said. "You can do no more."
Michael groaned. "We have not talked of it all yet, Margaret," he said miserably, "the horror of the smallpox."
"Millicent has told me about it, Michael." She tried to smile. "It is a thing of the past. What good will talking do? We are happy again."
Millicent turned to Michael. "I have told her a very little," she said. "And now I have something which I must tell you. When I saw her in Cairo I told her that I had been with you, I told her that you would write to me, I inferred that you and I were lovers."
Michael bent his head. He was innocent of any deed of unfaithfulness, but what of his desires? What of the night when Margaret"s presence had saved him? He wondered if she was conscious of the part she had played in his renunciation.
"And you still trusted me?" Michael"s words were so full of grat.i.tude and wonder that Margaret"s veins were flooded with happiness. How greatly he had been tempted!
"I remembered my promise. More than once it seemed to me that I succeeded in being very near you."
Her eyes questioned him. He understood; his eyes answered her.
"I told her that I had been with you," Millicent said, "but not for how long. She never dreamed that my coming was quite unknown to you, that I was with you for so short a time, that you hated my presence in the camp. How well she knew you!"
Margaret turned to Michael. "Yes, I knew him," she said. "Thank G.o.d, I knew him! We learnt to know each other in the Valley, and I think I realized the situation better than you thought I did."
"But I must tell you, I must show you even more than you dream of how true and loyal he has been."
"No, no, please don"t," Margaret said. "Michael has told me all I want to know." She was sorry for Michael"s embarra.s.sment; he writhed under the whole thing.
Millicent paid no attention to her words. She repeated the story for Margaret"s benefit. Michael turned away impatiently. He had meant to tell Margaret all the details of his life in the desert when they were married and alone together.
"As I told you," Millicent said, "I met him in the desert. I had found out where he was going to. He was furiously angry . . . he wanted me to go back. I stayed against his wishes. The saint turning up the same day as I did made him forget me. I often tried to win him from you . . . and I thought I was succeeding. The only reason he didn"t turn me out of the camp was because of my equipment and food--they were good for the holy man, who was ill. He was sickening with the smallpox, only we didn"t know it. Michael took him into his camp. I told you about that. We didn"t know what was the matter with him, but Michael behaved like an angel to the lunatic. When he discovered that he had smallpox, I implored him to leave him. When he wouldn"t, I fled. That very night I left him alone, even though I had told him that I loved him--I had offered myself to him. I took all my luxuries with me. I was mad . . . furiously angry. He had taken the sick man in against all my entreaties; he had scorned my love. The next morning Ha.s.san told me that one of my men had deserted, left our camp at dawn."