Part 83 (1/2)

”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 s.h.i.+ning 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 s.h.i.+ver 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.”