t that even in the worst human beings there is the divine spark.
It actually hurt her that her own joy should mean this agony to another
woman.

"You are going to be married," Millicent said, "to the finest lover and
the truest gentleman I have ever known, or ever shall know, the finest
in the world, I think."

"Yes," Margaret said. "He is all that, and more--at least, to me."

"Much more," Millicent said, "much more. And will you tell him that I
never reached the hills, that I am not guilty of that one meanness?"

"Then who did?" Margaret said quickly.

"Oh, then you thought I did? You thought I robbed him of his
discovery? Does he think so, too?" Her voice shook. Her curious
sense of honour scorned the idea.

"No, no," Margaret said. Her love of truth made her speak frankly.
"He wouldn't believe it. He is still convinced that you never went to
the hills, that you are innocent."

"But you believed it?"

"Yes," Margaret's voice was stern. "Yes, I believed it for a time."

"I have nothing worth lying for now," Millicent said bitterly; "so what
I tell you is perfectly true. I never reached the hills; I was too
great a coward. I fled away in the night, as fast as I could, back to
civilization."

"Then who anticipated Michael's discovery? It's absurd to assume that
someone who knew nothing of his theory should have discovered it at the
very same time, almost. Do you expect me to believe that?"

"My dragoman told me that one of my men absconded. He left me on the
same night as I left Michael's camp. He must have discovered it; he
must have heard the saint telling Michael all about it." She paused.
"You know the whole story, don't you? All about the saint, and how his
illness turned out to be smallpox?" She shuddered at the very mention
of the saint.

"No," Margaret said. "I haven't heard about the smallpox. Was that
how you got it?"

"Indirectly, yes, but it was my own fault. When I heard that he had
got it, I stole away in the night, I left Michael to face it alone."
She paused.

Margaret held her tongue. There was something so horrible about
smallpox that, in spite of the woman's cowardly behaviour, she felt
some sympathy for her.

"He had begged me to go before the saint turned up. I wouldn't. When
the saint appeared he forgot almost everything else, and so for one
whole day I remained confident in the belief that he had taken my
presence for granted. And then," she shuddered,