nd the treasure."

"What has happened?" Margaret said. Millicent's voice was agonized.

"I had smallpox in Alexandria--it has left me hideous. Soon after I
last saw you I sickened with it. I was very, very ill."

"Smallpox!" There was genuine sympathy in Margaret's voice. "Are you
really disfigured? How dreadful that nowadays you should be!"

"Yes," Millicent said, lifelessly. "I have nothing left to live for
now. My looks are gone. I was very ignorantly nursed; they were kind
people, but hopelessly ignorant."

"Perhaps your looks will come back--give yourself time." Even as
Margaret spoke, she wondered how she found it possible to talk to the
woman in the way she was doing. Only five minutes ago she had hated
her, hated her so intensely that she had had to exercise great control
over her passions so that she should not lose her temper in her
presence. Now she felt a sincere pity for her, the poor creature.
Margaret's subconscious womanhood knew the reason. It was because she
could afford, to be sorry for her, now that all rivalry between them
was dead.

"I didn't come to tell you about myself," Millicent said. "It is
nothing to you--you must be glad." She wrung her hands more tightly.
"You are saying in your heart at this moment that I deserve it. So I
do. I see things clearly now--I do deserve it. I brought it all on
myself, everything. But I have suffered, you don't know how I have
suffered."

"Sit down," Margaret said quietly, "and tell me all about it."

"No, no. You are only speaking like this because you feel you ought
to, because I am now a thing to pity. You really hate me. I came to
tell you that I never reached the hills, I never saw the hidden
treasure, I never tried to find it." She paused. "And that your lover
was never mine. He never desired any woman but you--he scorned me,
ignored my advances."

"I know that," Margaret said hotly. A fire had kindled her calm eyes;
it quickened her spirit.

"But it is none the less my duty to tell you. Your lover is too fine,
too loyal--he won't stoop to tell you how I tempted him. He wouldn't
blacken even _my_ name. He has too much respect for womanhood."

"Then why tell me?" Margaret said. "I don't want to hear it. All that
is past. We are going to be married tomorrow--Michael is home from the
Front. We are perfectly happy--don't recall it all."

A cry rang through the room. Its tone of envy and passion convinced
Margare