from the avarice of the priests of Amon, who set up
graven images and worshipped false gods.

For the first time since she had been doing the work of a pantry-maid,
Margaret set out the tea-trays and washed up the cups in an automatic,
aloof manner. Her material body was busy in the hospital-pantry, while
spiritually she was far away. Visions rose and faded before her eyes
in rapid succession, but the one which she saw oftenest was the look of
surprise and smiling incredulity on Freddy's face. The cry in her
heart was for his sympathy, for his knowing, for his congratulations on
the wonderful piece of news. Why could he not have been allowed to
know it while he was still alive on this earth and able to talk to her?
She wanted to be personally and materially close to him while he read
the letter.

She longed for that more ardently and whole-heartedly than anything
else; she hungered for it even more fiercely than the coming back of
Michael, whose return into her life she was convinced would eventually
happen. Whether it would be for her happiness or otherwise she was
ignorant.

When she thought of his coming and of her first meeting with him, her
pride rose up in arms, her mind was devastated with embarrassment. The
meeting would open up old wounds, which she had imagined were healed.
There she had been mistaken; they were like the wounds of a patient
which appear to be healed while he lies at rest in the hospital, but
which break out again when he resumes his normal life. The war had
drugged Margaret's senses.

She had curiously little fear for Michael as a soldier, for whenever
she thought of him as one, as fighting at the Front, she saw the bright
light surrounding him, and disarming his amazed opponents.

During the short time which Freddy was at the Front, how different her
thoughts had been! His beauty and ability seemed to say to her, as she
watched him on that memorable afternoon at the station, "Whom the gods
love die young." He seemed to typify to her England's brave and
beautiful young whom the war chose for its victims. The wages of the
war were England's youth and devotion. She knew that much as Freddy
loved his work and enjoyed his life, he would be the last to grudge his
death. It was she herself who so ardently wished that he had died in
action; that his brains and ability had been given a chance; that he
could have done as he would have wished to do, taken a life for a life;
that he cou