If it was, how exactly it all tallied with
the African's vision!

"I believe that there is very little excavating work to be done,"
Margaret said. "I have had so little time with Hadassah that I have
not even referred to the subject." She smiled, surprised at the fact
when it was brought before her. "But in a letter she told me that the
chambers were singularly perfect. They are cut in the virgin rock;
they are not extensive, but nothing had been destroyed. One of the
chambers was evidently intended for a royal treasury."

"In Flanders," Michael said, "life is very real." He turned to the
window as he spoke; Margaret's news had troubled him. "Germany has
made all our lives horribly real. What you have told me seems to
belong to another state of our existence." His eyes were far away from
either Margaret or Millicent; they were with his comrades in the
trenches. "When I was knee-deep in mud in the trenches I often thought
that our hut-home in the silent Valley was a dream, a beautiful dream,
one of those dreams we can never forget, however long we live, but only
a dream."

He drew himself up. "We have been brought back to firm earth. Our
apprenticeship on this side isn't finished, Meg. We aren't ready to
fully understand the things beyond. While we are on this earth, I
believe it is wiser to rest content with the things that are here." He
smiled. "Perhaps Freddy is right--it is wiser to walk on our two feet."

"Perhaps it is," Margaret said wistfully. "But thank God I trusted to
the progress of one person who occasionally walks on his head."

While Michael's back was turned to the door, and Margaret was looking
at him with eyes of sympathy, and with the knowledge in her heart that
he was living over again scenes and actions in Flanders which left her
far behind him, Millicent had slipped from the room. With her white
corset-boxes in her arms she fled downstairs and silently opened the
front door. As silently it shut behind her.

For a moment she paused, before descending the steps. London was there
in front of her, London with its luxuries and its sins, which not even
the strength of Germany or the sacrifice of young lives could
obliterate. The spring made no call to her; the sunshine mocked her
because of her empty world.

* * * * * *

When Michael and Margaret discovered that she was gone, they stood for
a little while locked in each other's arms. As Marga