Part 43 (2/2)

Still Millicent was brave, her voice scornful. ”_Baksheesh_--the moving finger in the East.”

”You contemptible creature!” he said. ”Who did you pay?”

”That would be telling.”

”I know it would,” he said. ”And you are going to tell me.” He held her with painful firmness.

Millicent's courage gave way. Michael's eyes alarmed her. Something in them warned her that, once roused, he was a dangerous man to trifle with. There is not an immeasurable distance between the mystic and the madman. The pressure of his fingers on her shoulders warned her of his strength; his thumb was like a turnscrew.

”Who did you pay?” he asked. ”Tell me, or you will regret it.” His grasp became an agony.

”Mohammed Ali,” Millicent murmured. ”He showed me Margaret's diary.”

Michael groaned. ”You little beast!” he cried. ”You mean little beast!”

Millicent burst into a flood of weeping. She knew that it was her only chance, a woman's deadliest weapon with such a man. ”I loved you so!

Oh, Mike, I loved you so! Can't you understand? Is there no humanity in you? Is your nature so devoid of pa.s.sion, of human love, that you can't understand the mad heights and the depths it can lead you to? I have never been given the chance of rising to the heights.”

Mike heard her sobs. He saw her beautiful body convulsed with anguish.

The real woman was there at his feet, a weak creature, whose love for himself had driven her to do these deeds he despised. He felt that he was in a manner to blame; for him she had sunk to this degradation.

”I am so ashamed, Mike, but for days my shame has been drowned in anger. I followed you and trapped you and spied upon you.” She looked up pleadingly. ”And I'd do it all over again, even worse, Mike, I know I would, even though I am despicable in my own eyes.”

”Don't!” he said. ”It has become a madness with you, an obsession.”

”Love is a madness,” she said. ”It is an obsession. It is devouring me. No one can judge of its power until they have felt it.”

He sat down beside her. ”Millicent,” he said gently, ”have you ever thought of praying, of asking for help?” He paused. ”You poor, poor soul, have you ever in your life tried to reach your higher self, to get away from all this?”

”No, never.” The words came frankly. ”First let me enjoy this human love, Michael.” Her eyes pleaded. ”Then I may try to be as you are, but not till then.”

”It would be no enjoyment,” he said. ”Only a hideous mockery, a wilful lowering of your better self.”

”Not of my better self, Mike--not really. I might rise to higher things afterwards, with that one beautiful memory to help me, an Eden in the desert.” Her voice was humble; her eyes swam with tears--a beautiful Magdalen.

”Poor little soul!” he said. ”Poor little Millicent!”

”Yes, Mike, poor little soul, poor lonely soul!”

”I wish I could do something to help you, show you that there is a higher, stronger support than any poor love of mine.”

”But I don't want it--at least, not now. It doesn't appeal to me. I don't want it, for if I tried to be better, I'd have to try to kill my desire for you, and even if it gives me no happiness, I'd rather have it than kill it. I couldn't relinquish it. It would be giving up the only thing I have of you--my poor, unwanted wanting of you.”

”What can I say? What can I do?” Michael was in despair. ”How can I help you?”

This humble, tearful Millicent made him wretched. He felt guilty and unkind. He was the innocent cause of her unhappiness. It was not possible to be human and remain untouched by her pa.s.sion for himself.

Yet he knew that he must not allow her to know that, or how his heart ached for her. Her spiritual loneliness horrified him. She had absolutely nothing to turn to, nothing to rely upon. Her religious observances were mere conventional occupations. And yet mixed up in the woman there was a mental quality very rare and sympathetic, a strange fitful brilliance, extremely pleasing. Once or twice on their journey she had expressed the peculiar quality of the scenery in words which were not far off prose poems. It had puzzled him to know how her intellectual refinement could dwell in the same temple as her low characteristics.

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