There was a King in Egypt Part 81

"If you will let me see you, I will tell you something which you ought to know. Please don't refuse. What I know may greatly help Mr. Amory.

"I only heard the other day that he never discovered the treasure. It is about that I want to see you.

"Yours,

"MILLICENT MERVILL."

When Hada.s.sah had finished reading the note, she raised her eyes; they met Margaret's.

"You had better see her." Hada.s.sah spoke quickly.

"Yes, I must, I suppose. I only wanted to know if you would mind--it is your house. I think it's such impertinence."

"Of course not. But what can she have to tell you?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, I do wish she hadn't come."

Margaret sighed. "We were all so happy, and she is a.s.sociated with everything that is hateful."

"Would you like me to come with you?"

"No, no." Margaret shook her head. "I am always best alone, but I dread the interview."

She paused for a moment or two before leaving the room. She was building up her courage, trying to subdue her nervousness. As she went out, Hada.s.sah's eyes followed her.

"Poor girl!" she said to herself. "She has gone through so much. I thought she was in for a little time of peace and happiness. Poor Margaret!" She sighed. "And what is there still before her?"

Hada.s.sah's eyes looked into the future, "with this cruel, cruel war only beginning, for we are really just getting into it!"

She had been preparing to write some letters relating to Margaret's affairs, but for a moment or two she did not take up her pen. A little of the truth of what did actually happen to Michael on the battlefields of Flanders swam before her eyes; it was just the things which were happening and have happened to England's brave boys and men during these three wonderful years. The war was still in its infancy, but even then the vices of Germany were as old as her race and as terrible.

She pictured the truth--Michael's charmed life, his reckless courage, his magnetic power over his men. She foresaw it all. His temperament foretold it, his absolute belief in the triumph of righteousness.

While Hada.s.sah was thinking these things, and thanking G.o.d in her heart that her husband, by reason of his special qualifications, had at once been placed in a post of great responsibility and one far removed from the danger-zone, Margaret had reached the drawing-room. She paused for a moment outside the door; she needed all her self-control.

As she entered the room, and before she had closed the door behind her, a slight figure, so shapelessly enveloped in black and closely-veiled that she could not distinguish any individuality, turned from the window, which opened into a small gla.s.s recess full of ferns and flowers.

Margaret did not hold out her hand; she could not. Nor did Millicent Mervill; she stood before Margaret, her head bent and her hands clasped in front of her, a slight bundle of drooping black, as mysterious as any veiled Egyptian woman.

"You have something to tell me?" Margaret said. In spite of her anger, the humility of the fragile figure brought a suggestion of pity into her voice. The radiant beauty whom she had steeled her nerves to meet had given place to this meek, formless penitent. "Please put up your veil--I can't see you." She knew that she could not trust the woman's words; she wished to watch her eyes while she spoke.

"I am wearing it," Millicent said, "because I can't bear you to look at me, to see how changed I am. Please let me keep it down, while I tell you all I know about Mr. Amory and the treasure."

"What has happened?" Margaret said. Millicent's voice was agonized.

"I had smallpox in Alexandria--it has left me hideous. Soon after I last saw you I sickened with it. I was very, very ill."

"Smallpox!" There was genuine sympathy in Margaret's voice. "Are you really disfigured? How dreadful that nowadays you should be!"

"Yes," Millicent said, lifelessly. "I have nothing left to live for now. My looks are gone. I was very ignorantly nursed; they were kind people, but hopelessly ignorant."

"Perhaps your looks will come back--give yourself time." Even as Margaret spoke, she wondered how she found it possible to talk to the woman in the way she was doing. Only five minutes ago she had hated her, hated her so intensely that she had had to exercise great control over her pa.s.sions so that she should not lose her temper in her presence. Now she felt a sincere pity for her, the poor creature.

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.