Part 81 (2/2)

Margaret's subconscious womanhood knew the reason. It was because she could afford, to be sorry for her, now that all rivalry between them was dead.

”I didn't come to tell you about myself,” Millicent said. ”It is nothing to you--you must be glad.” She wrung her hands more tightly.

”You are saying in your heart at this moment that I deserve it. So I do. I see things clearly now--I do deserve it. I brought it all on myself, everything. But I have suffered, you don't know how I have suffered.”

”Sit down,” Margaret said quietly, ”and tell me all about it.”

”No, no. You are only speaking like this because you feel you ought to, because I am now a thing to pity. You really hate me. I came to tell you that I never reached the hills, I never saw the hidden treasure, I never tried to find it.” She paused. ”And that your lover was never mine. He never desired any woman but you--he scorned me, ignored my advances.”

”I know that,” Margaret said hotly. A fire had kindled her calm eyes; it quickened her spirit.

”But it is none the less my duty to tell you. Your lover is too fine, too loyal--he won't stoop to tell you how I tempted him. He wouldn't blacken even _my_ name. He has too much respect for womanhood.”

”Then why tell me?” Margaret said. ”I don't want to hear it. All that is past. We are going to be married tomorrow--Michael is home from the Front. We are perfectly happy--don't recall it all.”

A cry rang through the room. Its tone of envy and pa.s.sion convinced Margaret that even in the worst human beings there is the divine spark.

It actually hurt her that her own joy should mean this agony to another woman.

”You are going to be married,” Millicent said, ”to the finest lover and the truest gentleman I have ever known, or ever shall know, the finest in the world, I think.”

”Yes,” Margaret said. ”He is all that, and more--at least, to me.”

”Much more,” Millicent said, ”much more. And will you tell him that I never reached the hills, that I am not guilty of that one meanness?”

”Then who did?” Margaret said quickly.

”Oh, then you thought I did? You thought I robbed him of his discovery? Does he think so, too?” Her voice shook. Her curious sense of honour scorned the idea.

”No, no,” Margaret said. Her love of truth made her speak frankly.

”He wouldn't believe it. He is still convinced that you never went to the hills, that you are innocent.”

”But you believed it?”

”Yes,” Margaret's voice was stern. ”Yes, I believed it for a time.”

”I have nothing worth lying for now,” Millicent said bitterly; ”so what I tell you is perfectly true. I never reached the hills; I was too great a coward. I fled away in the night, as fast as I could, back to civilization.”

”Then who antic.i.p.ated Michael's discovery? It's absurd to a.s.sume that someone who knew nothing of his theory should have discovered it at the very same time, almost. Do you expect me to believe that?”

”My dragoman told me that one of my men absconded. He left me on the same night as I left Michael's camp. He must have discovered it; he must have heard the saint telling Michael all about it.” She paused.

”You know the whole story, don't you? All about the saint, and how his illness turned out to be smallpox?” She shuddered at the very mention of the saint.

”No,” Margaret said. ”I haven't heard about the smallpox. Was that how you got it?”

”Indirectly, yes, but it was my own fault. When I heard that he had got it, I stole away in the night, I left Michael to face it alone.”

She paused.

<script>