The next morning Margaret rose early. During her long and sleepless
night she had reviewed her position over and over again; there seemed
to be no way out of it. She must and would keep her promise to Freddy.
It is impossible to give a lucid interpretation of her tortured
feelings. In her practical, reasoning mind her thoughts were black and
suspicious; her heart was full of doubts, anger, wounded pride; while
in the background, still shining like the dim light on the horizon at
the approach of dawn, was her unconquerable belief in her lover's
honour.
She felt compelled to act up to her practical judgment, to her promise
that she would go home to England if she heard from either Michael's or
Millicent's own lips that they had been together in the desert. But it
was the horizon-light which helped her and made her able to bear the
shock of Millicent's brutal announcement.
For one whole night she had faced the certain fact that Millicent had
camped in the desert with Michael. Anyone who has considered the
ceaseless workings of the human brain will understand what no pen could
describe--the countless arguments for and against her lover's honour
which came and went in an endless rotation in Margaret's mind.
She was glad when daylight flooded the room and she could get up and
take the definite steps which would settle her doom. There is nothing
so unendurable as lying in bed, a victim to miserable thoughts.
As soon as she was dressed she wrote a brief letter to Freddy. She
felt like a criminal writing a warrant for her own arrest, but as the
thing had to be done, it was best to get it over soon as possible.
"DEAR CHUM,
"Last night I saw Millicent Mervill and what she told me leaves me no
choice. I will keep my promise and go back to England. A boat goes
next Tuesday; if I can book a passage I shall go by it. Until then I
will stay with Hadassah Ireton. I like her most awfully.
"Please don't think that by keeping my promise to you I am condemning
Mike or that I have given up hope that one day he will be able to
explain everything satisfactorily. Don't worry about me, dear old
thing. I'm all right and I will take every care of myself, so keep
your mind easy on that point. I'm not nearly so wretched as I should
be if I believed everything that this letter implies.
"Yours ever,
"MEG.
"P.S.--Millicent pretended not to know anything about the information
which the Government has received. She told me, with an air of
beautiful innocence, that an uncle in Australia had left her a nice
legacy. Funny isn't it? I think I managed to behave pretty well--the
shades of our ancestors guarded me, I suppose."
When the letter was posted, and could not be retrieved, Meg went into
the coffee-room and tried to soothe her soul with material comforts.
An excellent cup of coffee made a good beginning. The letter settling
her fate was in the post-office; she was going home to England in a few
days. She was trying to swallow the hard facts with each mouthful
which she drank.
What a contrast her leaving Egypt would be to her arrival in the
country! How flattened out and disillusioned she would feel! What an
ordinary, everyday ending to her vivid romance in the Valley! When she
thought of the little hut, almost hidden in one of the many wrinkles of
the hills, she smiled. Her senses glowed; she visualized the arid
scene, suddenly transformed into an Eden with Love's passion-flowers.
No garden in paradise could suggest to a Moslem mind diviner voices or
greater radiance. Cairo, with its confusion of sounds and its medley
of human races, was empty and meaningless; it was wiped out. She was
once more in the Valley, where life was vital and human.
After a little time of happy dreaming, the bitter fact came back to
her, like a cold wind disturbing a summer's heat, that she had actually
written to her brother promising him that she would go home. What
would Hadassah think? What did her own conscience say?
Yet only one hour ago she had felt convinced that she was doing her
duty, that her honour and womanly pride demanded that she should keep
her promise. She had nerved herself against a thousand inner voices to
obey her brother. She blushed for shame. In writing the letter she
had practically admitted Michael's unfaithfulness as a lover. How
could she have allowed herself to be so devastated by jealousy, have
allowed her mind to be so concentrated on the unlovely side of the
story? Even Hadassah Ireton had scorned it, while she, "the mistress
of Mike's happiness," had doubted and despaired!
Poor Margaret! If she had been less human, her Valley of Eden had held
no flowers. The desert had been a wilderness indeed.
* * * * * *
The psychic and devotional side of her lover's nature engrossed her
thoughts. She recalled to her mind all that he had taught and
explained to her about the views and religion of the tragic Pharaoh,
the world's first conscientious objector.
Since she had heard of the scandal, she had scarcely thought of the
occult and psychic side of the journey. Her attitude had been
self-engrossed and materialistic.
She sighed. How difficult it was to drive self out of one's thoughts,
for was there anything as interesting in the whole of the wonderful
world as one's self, one's miserably unworthy, puny self?
Hadassah had truly said, "We have two selves . . . what armed enemies
they are!" Surely she, Margaret, had more than two selves? It seemed
to her that she had a hundred, for every hour of the day and year.
Long ago, in her untroubled college days, she had been one woman, with
one mind and one purpose--her intellectual work. Egypt had changed
her. The great mother of the world-civilization had revealed to her
some of the amazing secrets hidden in the human heart; from her
immortal treasury of things good and evil she had bestowed upon her
child the jewel of suffering, the pearl of passion. As a devout pupil
Margaret had knelt at her knee.
In her very modern surroundings she felt quite another being from the
Margaret who had seen the vision of Akhnaton in the Valley. She had
allowed herself to forget that she had been instrumental in developing
the psychic side of Michael's nature. The thought of it now seemed
absurd; it was probable that her surroundings and her work had been
accountable for the visions. Her imagination had unconsciously
pictured them.
And yet there was a sound argument against this common-sense, practical
view of the thing, for she had visualized almost exactly the type and
individuality of a character in history of whom she was totally
ignorant. Even in the modern hotel, in her everyday surroundings, she
could see with extraordinary clearness the rays of light which had
surrounded that head. Nothing could ever obliterate the picture of the
suffering Pharaoh from her memory.
She had left the breakfast-room, and as she waited for the lift to
descend, she was almost afraid that it would bring Millicent down with
it from the floor above. But it did not. There was a grain of
disappointment in the elements which made up Margaret's feelings as she
saw that it was empty. The Lampton combative instinct demanded a fight
to the finish, and an open, broad-daylight attack.