There was a King in Egypt Part 86

Hada.s.sah 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."

Hada.s.sah was silent. Her husband's arms were still round her. He kissed her pa.s.sionately.

"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.'"