"You and Michael live on such a high plane!"

"Oh no, we don't. You know Michael is very human—that is why he is so understanding, so forgiving."

"He will never forgive me—that would be expecting too much. But I had to come and tell you all that I know about his treasure. I have only just heard—I saw it in the Egyptian monthly Archaeological Report—that Michael never had the glory of discovering the Akhnaton chambers in the hills."

"You didn't know that when I saw you in Cairo?"

"No, I never dreamed of it. If you had only told me that he hadn't, I should have explained, I should have told you about the man who absconded."

Margaret looked at her searchingly, but she could learn nothing more than the voice told her, for Millicent's veil was still covering her disfigured face.

"I never wished to rob him of the honour of the discovery. If I had known when I saw you, I should have cleared my name, at least, of that contemptible deed."

Margaret blushed. "I couldn't tell you," she said. "I was too unhappy, too angry. I didn't want you to know of our disappointment. I pretended that I had heard from Michael."

"You led me to suppose that he had discovered it."

"I know," Margaret said. "I didn't wish to add to your satisfaction by telling you of his disappointment. I was convinced that you knew, and that you had slipped off to the hills." She paused. "We were bluffing each other."

"I was incubating smallpox. I was wearing a blouse and skirt which had been packed with the clothes I wore in the desert. Probably it had come in touch with some infected thing."

"Were you very bad?" Margaret said. "Where have you been all this time?"

Millicent shivered. "I was just going to sail for England, but I was too ill when I reached Alexandria to go on board the boat—I had to stay behind. I have been hiding myself from the world ever since. Yes, I was dreadfully ill, and now. . . ." Her voice broke. "You don't know what I feel when I look at myself—my own face makes me sick."

"I am so sorry," Margaret said. "You were so beautiful, such a wonderful colour!"

"How kind of you to say so!" Millicent's voice left no doubt of her feeling of shame, although Margaret's nobility was beyond her understanding; it humbled her. "I came to you because I wanted to do what I can to undo what I have done. If Michael had known that my servant anticipated his discovery, it might have given him a clue as to where the treasure has gone. You do believe now that I never saw the jewels? I never dreamed of robbing him!" She paused. "In my poor way I loved him. I couldn't have done that—not that."

"And yet you were so horribly cruel! You knew a great deal about men. Michael is only human, and he is so ready to believe the best of everyone."

"Yes, I know. But I suppose I was born bad, born with feelings you don't understand. Michael did his best to help me; he tried to awaken something higher in me. I suppose you won't believe it, but he has—he has helped me; I am not quite what I was. While I was ill, when I thought I was dying, all that he had ever said to me came back to me with a new meaning. I determined that if I got well I would tell you everything—how wonderful his love for you is, how strong he can be—and it is not the strength of a man who does not feel."

"Oh, I know it," Margaret said. Her voice was resentful.

"But please let me tell you, even if you do know it. It is only right to Michael—I must exonerate him, even if you resent hearing me speak of his love for you. Let me make a clean breast of it, show you how ignorant he was of my plans for meeting him. He never was more surprised in his life."

"I didn't mean to resent it, but there are some things we never need telling, things which are better left unsaid. Michael needs no telling that you never stole the jewels, for instance, that you never tried to reach the hills."

"Stole the jewels! No, I never stole them. You thought that?" Horror was in Millicent's voice. "You thought I stole them for my personal use? To wear them?"

"It would not have been so cruel as to steal my lover, would it?"

"It would have been less difficult."

"You tried—oh, how you tried to steal him! How could—you?" A revulsion of feeling hardened Margaret. Her eyes showed it. She was visualizing Millicent in all her former beauty. Even without beauty, she knew how strongly her vitality would appeal to men. Despondent, in her drooping black shawls, Millicent was keenly alive still. Margaret had always felt her vitality; she knew that men felt it. It stirred them to conquest; it invited contest.

Millicent answered her truthfully. "Because I am bad, not good, and I loved him with the only kind of love I know. It swept aside all scruples. You can't judge—try to believe that—you can't begin to judge. I lived for conquest and men's admiration, and now I have lost both."

Margaret felt humbled to the dust. Her judgment had been so crude, so narrow. She realized that the woman before her left her far behind in the matter of vitality, passion and self-criticism. Her energy and vitality demanded an outlet, an object.

"Don't feel like that," she said gently. "Your looks will come back. Do let me see your face. It is early days yet—the marks will disappear, grow fainter. It is only one year—give it time, forget all about it in hard work, and while you are working. Nature will be working too."

"No, no!" Millicent cried. "Never! I am going to fly from my friends—I am going to hide myself."

Margaret had attempted to raise her thick veil, but Millicent refused to let her. Instead, she threw another thickness of it over her face. Her pride could not stand even Margaret's pity and comforting words.

"I am humbled enough as it is," she said. "Don't do that."

"I didn't want to humble you," Margaret said. "I only thought, and I do still think, that you are exaggerating the change in your appearance. One sees every little thing about oneself so clearly. I know how a wee spot seems like a Vesuvius when it is on one's nose. With smallpox the marks do get more and more invisible."

"No, my looks will never come back," Millicent said miserably. "And for a woman like me, when her looks are gone, what is there left?"

"Work," Margaret said. "The war will make you forget all about personal things—it will, really. Life is different now. If you will only take up some war-work—and I know you will, for every able-bodied woman in England is working at something; every superfluous woman has become a thing of value—life will be completely changed. There is only one idea, one aim for us all—to win the war. You must do your bit. It is just our 'bit' that keeps us sane, for without it we should have time to think. We women must not think, we must work."

"But what could I do?"

"Almost anything," Margaret said. "You know you could—you are so clever."

"Don't flatter, please," Millicent said. "How can you be so forgiving?"

"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 anticipated 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 God!" 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 God!" 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 gratitude 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 God, 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 embarrassment; 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 Hassan told me that one of my men had deserted, left our camp at dawn."

"Stop, that's enough!" Michael cried. "Stop it!" Every word had lashed his nerves and brought back to his memory his own struggles, his own weakness.

"I fled," Millicent went on, not heeding his interruption. "I spent some weeks in Upper Egypt. I thought I had escaped the horrible disease. . . . I thought Hassan had taken every precaution. He sent some of my boxes straight on to Cairo; I opened them the night I saw you. They must have carried the infection—that is how I got smallpox. It lay in wait for me." She paused, breathless, and then went on excitedly: "I know nothing about the treasure. I am absolutely innocent in that one respect. I can tell you nothing more, nothing."

As Millicent ceased speaking, Michael took up her story.

"Margaret," he said, "some days after she left us the saint died. When he was buried, we moved on." As he spoke, he visualized the desert burial. "We journeyed to the hills. On our way we passed through a subterranean village—a terrible place, of flies and filth! The Omdeh of the village, a fine old gentleman, told us of the growing unrest among the desert tribes—German work, of course; we are seeing the fruit of it now. I paid no heed to him; I felt too ill, too tired. I only cared about reaching the hills. When we did reach them, we found that a camp was already established. Information had been given to the Government." He heaved a deep sigh. "The thing was out of my hands. I suppose the shock finished me for the time being, for when I left the excavation-camp I became ill, so ill that Abdul had to take me as quickly as he could to the Omdeh's house near the subterranean village. I stayed there until late on in May." He stopped abruptly.

"The rest won't bear speaking about. What made things so much worse, Meg, was thinking about what you would be suffering, what Freddy would be saying." His eyes sought Margaret's. "It is best to forget, it is wiser to think of tomorrow."

"Yes, let us forget all about it," Margaret said. Michael's expression frightened her. As a soldier he had enough to bear without raking up what was past.

"Abdul became as dear to me as a brother," Michael said quietly. "His devotion was wonderful! We are not of the same faith"—he was speaking to himself—"but our God is the same God, our love for Him the same. Abdul knew that."

"And your illness?" Millicent said. "Was it smallpox?"

"No, no—none of my camp caught it. It was enteric fever. I suppose I was worn out, both mentally and physically. The disappointment about the treasure was the last straw, it was so cruel. I am able to accept it now, it doesn't hurt me any longer. The war has done that; the war is like concentrated time—it obliterates and wipes out, and even heals."

"But you discovered it, Michael! You were the real discoverer. If it hadn't been for you, and for your special knowledge, the man who stole it, who gave the information, would never have found it. And, after all, as Michael Ireton says, that is the main point of interest." Margaret's eyes glowed with pride. "And haven't you heard the sequel to that tragedy?—the finding of some ancient jewels which the thief must have dropped in the desert, not so very far from the hill-chambers?"

As Michael had not heard that the gems had been found, Margaret told him the story which Hadassah had written to her.

"They prove, Mike, what after all is to us the most important fact in the whole affair—that you were right, that all the information given you by the seer was correct."

Margaret did not include her vision of Akhnaton in Millicent's presence; it was always a sacred subject between them.

"That is what Abdul said, and I know it is true. But who can prove it? To the disbelieving no one can prove that there was any treasure, any gold or great wealth of jewels." He looked into Margaret's eyes. He said plainly, "Freddy died unconvinced on that point."

Margaret understood. She had so often wished that Freddy could have known all that had transpired since his death.

"I will spend all my money and wits on finding the wretch," Millicent said humbly. "I will hunt this treasure to earth. If there were jewels, they shall be found. I will never stop until I have traced them, never! That will give me some interest in life—if you will let me do it, that is to say."

"The jewels will all be cut by this time, the gold will be melted. No one will be able to recognize them."

"You can't find the thief," Margaret said. "He died of smallpox—Mr. Ireton heard that from the Government authorities. They set detectives on his track, and discovered his whereabouts, but he was unconscious. They think that he buried the treasure, that it is again lost to the world. It is still waiting for you, Mike."

"I know that there were many more jewels where the crimson amethyst came from," Michael said, "whether they are ever found again or not." He was thinking of the words of his old friend in el-Azhar. If he came out of the war alive, he might again hope to discover them.

"I can do something else," Millicent spoke pleadingly. "Say you will let me! I am rich—my money is no good to me."

Michael looked at her for an explanation. His eyes were cold.

"I can spend some of my money in paying the expenses of the digging, for excavating on the site. The war will put a stop to all excavating work in Egypt and the Holy Land so far as England is concerned, but if I give sufficient money, you can employ the best Egyptologists in America, so that the work can go on this autumn. You will not have to wait until the war is over before you find out all there is to be known on the subject."

"The papyri will prove a great deal," Michael said; "they found papyri." Millicent's words scarcely penetrated to his brain. He was obsessed with the idea that the Egyptologists suspected that the treasure was again buried. If it was, how exactly it all tallied with the African's vision!

"I believe that there is very little excavating work to be done," Margaret said. "I have had so little time with Hadassah that I have not even referred to the subject." She smiled, surprised at the fact when it was brought before her. "But in a letter she told me that the chambers were singularly perfect. They are cut in the virgin rock; they are not extensive, but nothing had been destroyed. One of the chambers was evidently intended for a royal treasury."

"In Flanders," Michael said, "life is very real." He turned to the window as he spoke; Margaret's news had troubled him. "Germany has made all our lives horribly real. What you have told me seems to belong to another state of our existence." His eyes were far away from either Margaret or Millicent; they were with his comrades in the trenches. "When I was knee-deep in mud in the trenches I often thought that our hut-home in the silent Valley was a dream, a beautiful dream, one of those dreams we can never forget, however long we live, but only a dream."

He drew himself up. "We have been brought back to firm earth. Our apprenticeship on this side isn't finished, Meg. We aren't ready to fully understand the things beyond. While we are on this earth, I believe it is wiser to rest content with the things that are here." He smiled. "Perhaps Freddy is right—it is wiser to walk on our two feet."

"Perhaps it is," Margaret said wistfully. "But thank God I trusted to the progress of one person who occasionally walks on his head."

While Michael's back was turned to the door, and Margaret was looking at him with eyes of sympathy, and with the knowledge in her heart that he was living over again scenes and actions in Flanders which left her far behind him, Millicent had slipped from the room. With her white corset-boxes in her arms she fled downstairs and silently opened the front door. As silently it shut behind her.

For a moment she paused, before descending the steps. London was there in front of her, London with its luxuries and its sins, which not even the strength of Germany or the sacrifice of young lives could obliterate. The spring made no call to her; the sunshine mocked her because of her empty world.

* * * * * *

When Michael and Margaret discovered that she was gone, they stood for a little while locked in each other's arms. As Margaret raised her head from Michael's breast, he bent his head and kissed her lips.

"Dearest," he said, "you and I can afford to forgive her, poor lonely little soul!"

"I can forgive anybody anything, Mike."

"Even the Kaiser, beloved woman?"

Margaret shivered. "Don't let's think of him—not for eleven days, at least."

"We shall be able to be sorry for even him some day," he said. His confident tones delighted her, for his mention of the war had brought the angel with the flaming sword into her Eden.

"You really think so, Mike? Your inner self feels it? Sometimes I almost despair—they are so strong, so clever."

"I do believe it," he said. "You foolish woman, of course I believe it. The day may be a long way off, but it is coming, just the same. The triumph of light over darkness, Meg, the old, old fight—we shall see the resurrection of Osiris and the defeat of Set all over again. The sun of righteousness will stream over the world when the devil of militarism is crushed for ever."

He kissed her again rapturously. Their time together was so short; it left them little opportunity for lengthy talks on any subject. The way in which Michael broke off in the middle of his sentences to make love to her, and question her eagerly and impetuously, suggested the hosts that disturbed his mind. He wanted to tell her all about the old African's idea of the meaning of the war, and about his visualizing of the treasure for the second time; but he wanted still more her lips and her own exquisite assurances of her love for him, the eternal subject, which neither age nor war can affect. The one important fact which could not wait was that tomorrow she was to be his wife, and if he did not let her return to her preparations, there was the possibility that some hitch a might occur. So they went back to Hadassah and told her all that had happened.

For everyone concerned the rest of that day flew on wings. Each hour passed like a flash. Bed-time came, and Margaret scarcely seemed to have achieved half or quarter of the things she had meant to do.

A telegram had arrived, in answer to hers, from the aunt with whom she had lived as a child and young girl. The bride-elect had felt just a little worried about her aunt; she had written her a letter which she would receive on her wedding morning. In it Margaret had told her all about her friendship with Michael while she was living with Freddy in Egypt, and of Freddy's friendship with him, which was of a much longer duration. Also, she took pains to assure her aunt that, as far as pedigree was concerned, he had the blood of Irish kings in his veins.



CHAPTER IV

Their wedding-day was the sort of day which made Browning, when he lived in Florence, sing:

"Oh, to be in England Now that April's there. . . . * * * * "And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows . . ."

Margaret said the words to herself as the day greeted her when she pulled up her blind in the morning.

London, even in war time, was inviting and charming for such as drove about the West End in taxis, for they had not yet disappeared from the highways and byways. The day was clean and fresh and sweet-smelling. The promise of brilliant sunshine in the midday hours made the fashionable streets near the Iretons' rooms very busy and gay. Khaki-clad figures were everywhere; some were accompanied by daintily-clad girls, proud of their soldier lovers; others were walking with portly old gentlemen, their generous grandfathers or godfathers, most probably; while many of them had given themselves over to their mothers for the morning. Nor were they, as they would have been in the days of peace, embarrassed by their affectionate grasp of their arms and the unconcealed adoration and love.

* * * * * *

Things had happened with such bewildering rapidity that Margaret drove through the streets to the church in which they were to be married in a sort of open-eyed dream. She saw with extraordinary vividness all that was going on around her, even to the faces of the boys and girls who passed them in taxis; but she was incapable of concentrated thought. The hurry and excitement in which she had lived for the last two days left her breathless and vague.

She was driving with Michael Ireton, who was amazed at her outward calm. He little knew that the bride whom he was to give away was physically and nervously almost exhausted. The sudden end to the strain which she had endured so long had produced a dreamlike phase of almost semi-consciousness.

Margaret knew that Michael was ahead of her, in another taxi with Hadassah. She also knew that they were driving to the church with the outside pulpit which stands a little way back from the road in Piccadilly. She had always felt a special attraction for the quiet courtyard, right in the hurly-burly of one of the main arteries of London. She knew that she would have to say her responses in the marriage-service. Yet somehow she felt more like another person looking on from a great distance at the doings of someone else. One would feel the same remoteness if one was saying to oneself, "At this very moment Margaret will be getting married, she will be on her way to the church."

"Here we are," Michael Ireton said abruptly.

The taxi had stopped at the iron gate in the centre of the railings which guarded the precincts of the church. He jumped out quickly and Margaret followed him. In the porch of the church they stopped for a moment, to make sure of the fact that Michael was waiting to receive Margaret at the chancel steps. Then, still in a dream-state, Margaret walked up the aisle of the church on Michael Ireton's arm. She was not nervous; things were too unreal for her to be conscious of being nervous.

A few idle Londoners, seeing that there was going to be a wedding, had strayed into the church; otherwise it was empty. Michael thought it rather dark and solemn.

Margaret was daintily dressed in white, a frock suitable for travelling. Michael was still in his Tommy's uniform.

Nothing could have been simpler than the service which made them man and wife, or more unlike what Margaret's aunts would have considered suitable for their niece. It was a wedding after Michael's and Margaret's own hearts, a solemn sacrament of two people, not a society gathering of critical guests.

It was not until Michael took Margaret's hand in his, and pressed it eagerly and firmly, with an air of happy possession, that Margaret came to her full consciousness and to the significance of what she was doing. She had repeated her vows after the clergyman clearly and correctly; she had even said "I will" because her subconscious mind had impelled her to say it. The importance of the words had escaped her. It had been only her material body which stood by her lover's side.

Michael felt her air of aloofness, her distance. Her eyes had not met his when he had sought them, eager to welcome her. She had walked up the aisle and taken her place by his side like a spirit-woman, who was a stranger to him.

When at last his strong hand clasped hers, she looked up. Their eyes met. A long sigh travelled from Margaret's wakening heart to her lips. Michael felt her emotion. He held her hand more possessingly, as he said, very clearly:

"I, Michael Amory, take thee, Margaret Lampton, to be my wedded wife."

He tightened his grasp on her hand. Its dearness and magnetism affected her. Her feeling of somnolence vanished. Things became real, tremendously real and wonderful.

Michael was saying the words, "to love and to cherish, until death us do part."

At the word "death" Margaret's throat tightened. Something seemed to almost choke her. The words made her visualize the blood-soaked fields of Flanders. Weak tears filled her eyes; the loudness of her heart's beating made Michael's next vow, "according to God's holy ordinance," almost inaudible. The din of battle thundered in her brain. Death was going to part them almost directly; it was standing behind them now; it had been coming nearer and nearer for the last four months; it was only waiting until Michael had left her, until she was no longer near him. Like an avalanche crushing down upon her from a great height, the terror of death swept over her. Just as a shot from a rifle, or the vibration of a body of men marching under a precipice of loosened snow, will bring it down and cover them, the words "until death us do part" had overwhelmed Margaret.

Then a strange thing happened. As Michael said proudly and distinctly, "And thereto I give thee my troth," Margaret saw that he was surrounded by a brilliant light. He stood in the centre of long shafts of sunshine; they played round his head like the rays of Aton. Her terror of death vanished as swiftly as it had come. This was the light which guarded Michael in battle. A super-elation dispersed the thought of the brief married life which might be hers, that she might be stepping into widowhood even while she repeated her vows.

Bewilderment made her forget her part in the ceremony. She felt, but did not see the clergyman take her hand from Michael's. He separated them for a moment and then put her hand on the top of Michael's. He whispered something to her. Then she remembered her part, and said slowly and clearly after him the same words which Michael had repeated. The words "until death us do part" were said as she might have said them in pre-war days.

After that she was free from all nervousness and all sense of unreality. She saw Michael take the ring from the clergyman's fingers and hold it in his own hand. She smiled to him happily, as she saw his expression of relief and tenderness. In one moment more they would be man and wife; no distance or grief could change that.

When they knelt together for the first time as man and wife, and listened to the words of the beautiful prayer that they might "ever remain in perfect love and peace together," Margaret's happiness made her prayer a song of praise. If it was ordained that Michael was to be spared to her, how simple and natural a thing it would be for ever to remain in perfect love and peace together! Loving each other as they did, that would not be one of their difficulties. It was so restful to kneel side by side with Michael, listening to the gentle and solemn words, that she would have liked the prayer to go on for a long time. Her nervous condition made her apprehensive. Here, in the quiet church, which lay right in the heart-beat of the city, there was a divine sense of security.

Their heads were bent together; their arms were almost touching; their heart-beats were in unison; their minds were one.

But the prayer was finished. Michael's hand had clasped hers again; he was far more conscious of his part in the ceremony than she was of hers. He held her hand as if it was his world, the kingdom he had come into, while his eyes expressed his emotion and gratitude.

As the words "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder," and "I pronounce you man and wife," echoed through the chancel, Michael Ireton and Hadassah gave a pent-up sigh of relief.

When the clergyman turned to the altar and read aloud the sixty-seventh Psalm—Michael had requested it in preference to the hundred and twenty-eighth, which is perhaps the more usual—Hadassah saw the bride and bridegroom smile happily to each other. They smiled, because Michael had often read the Psalm to Margaret and remarked on its similarity to the prayers of Akhnaton.

"God be merciful unto us, and bless us: and show us the light of His countenance, and be merciful unto us;

"That Thy way may be known upon earth: Thy saving health among all nations.

"Let the people praise Thee, O God: yea, let all the people praise Thee.

"O let the nations rejoice and be glad: for Thou shalt judge the folk righteously, and govern the nations upon earth.

"Let the people praise Thee, O God: yea, let all the people praise Thee."

"Thou shalt govern the nations upon earth." That had been Akhnaton's mission, to preach these words, to tell the people that God, and man's understanding of His Love, must rule the world.

"Then shall the earth bring forth her increase: and God, even our own God, shall give us His blessing."

Akhnaton had sung his Hymn of Praise in his temples and in the pleasure-courts of his city in almost the very same words.

Confident that righteousness would triumph, that God's world-kingdom had come, he suffered the wrath of his military commanders, who were watching the breaking-up of his kingdom in far-off Syria.

* * * * * *

Two hours later the bride and the bridegroom, the two happiest people in London, drove away from the Iretons' rooms in Clarges Street. Hadassah and Michael Ireton watched them until the taxi was out of sight. As they turned into the hall, with something very like tears in their eyes—for even in the happiest marriages there is the quality of tears—Michael put his arms round his wife and drew her to him. As she looked up into his rugged face, his eyes more than his words said:

"We know how they feel, dearest! God bless them! Such happiness makes one weep in these days."

Hadassah pressed her dark head against his coat-sleeve. He held her closely; each day she was more precious in his sight.

"They are worthy of each other." His voice broke. "Really, when one sees such happiness, one says to oneself, even if they have only a fortnight together, it is a great deal, a wonderful thing."

Hadassah looked at her husband searchingly. "Somehow I've no fear for Michael—have you?"

Michael Ireton thought before he answered. "No, I don't think I have."

"There is a certain something about some people that makes one either afraid or not afraid for them—the men going to the Front, I mean. For Michael Amory I haven't any fear. I can't explain why—it's not that he will save himself by caution." She laughed.

"I know," her husband said. "Michael seems extraordinarily lucky. He told me a few things last night, of the escapes which he daren't tell Margaret, ghastly adventures. I'm afraid he's awfully rash. Like all Irishmen, when his blood's up, he hasn't any conception of the danger he's facing. He has the super-bravery of the Celt, and all his recklessness."

"I just hope that as a married man he will keep that supernatural nerve. A wife often destroys it."

"I know," Michael Ireton said. "One sees it so often—No wife, no danger—a wife at home, more caution, less nerve."

Hadassah was silent. Her husband's arms were still round her. He kissed her passionately.

"I feel like a bridegroom myself! Seeing Michael standing there waiting for Margaret brought our wedding-day back to me." His eyes caressed her.

"Did you notice the wonderful light that suddenly surrounded them just as Michael took Margaret's hand in his when he said, 'And thereto I give thee my troth'? The church had been rather dark and dreary up to then; all at once the sun streamed right down on them. It was really quite extraordinary, just as if an unseen hand had turned on the limelight. It was almost uncanny."

"I noticed it," Michael said.

"The effect was startling. I wondered if Margaret noticed it—it surely was a happy omen?"

Her husband smiled into her eyes. "I feel sure that Michael's subconscious self would be saying the grand words of his beloved Akhnaton:

"'Thou bindest them by Thy love. Though Thou art afar, Thy rays are upon earth; Though Thou art on high, Thy footprints are the day.'"

THE END