garet
spoke nervously, shyly; she shrank from speaking of her lover's belief
in the treasure of Akhnaton.

"Yes. He told my husband the twofold reason of his wish to make the
journey. He believes in the theory that there is a buried treasure in
the hills beyond Tel-el-Amarna, where Akhnaton was buried, and I think
he also wanted . . . what shall I say? . . . to find himself--I suppose
I must use that hackneyed phrase for want of a better--to find himself
in the desert. Wasn't that it?"

"Yes. He is a born wanderer." Margaret said the words dreamily; her
thoughts had flown, to the luminous figure of Akhnaton. In this superb
mansion, fashioned by Oriental genius and Eastern wealth and
imagination, her vision took its place, not unnaturally, in the strange
list of things which her eyes had seen or her mind had received during
her life in Egypt.

"Will you enjoy a wandering life? Don't you think women like a home?"

"With an intellectual companion any place is home; with a stupid one a
palace becomes a wilderness. I have learnt that in the desert, if I
have learnt nothing else, I think. Michael could make a real home out
of a bathing-machine and a box of books." She laughed. "He is never
dull, he doesn't know the meaning of the word bored. His only trouble
is that no day is long enough. He'd forget the dimensions of the
bathing-machine--it would become to him a beautiful house like this."

"What a wonderful thing love is!" Hadassah said to herself, as she
watched Margaret's eyes glow and shine. Her thoughts had transformed
her. "A wonderful and beautiful thing! Whatever would the world be
without it? And yet there are some people who go through life without
the faintest idea of what it really means!"

"What we three have got to do," she said aloud, "is to discover where
the wanderer is. The sooner he is found the sooner he can start life
in a bathing-box. I agree with you so far that I think it's more than
likely that he is ill--not necessarily seriously ill, but ill enough to
have been delayed on his journey. Still, that is not the only solution
of the problem. His letters may be lying in some native post-office.
I've known letters remain for weeks on end in out-of-the-way village
post-offices. The official can't read the address; he puts the letter
aside until someone comes along who can. It may be sooner, it may be
later; they eventually reach their destination."

Margaret smiled. "Michael