hat
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