"Then don't wait for me."
"Oh yes, I will. Only be quick." Millicent knew that she was too sick with fear to eat and enjoy the excellent dinner which had been prepared for them. As she waited for Michael, she cursed her own folly, her own abominable bad luck. If Michael was a carrier, she had no chance, unless she was one of those rare people who are immune from the disease. She did not think she was, because when she was last vaccinated, when she was fifteen, she had been very, very ill and sick. She felt physically tired, for her brain was quick. It was imagining horrible things. She was visualizing her own beauty spoilt, her fair skin deeply pitted with pock-marks, her colour all gone. The disease would take the glitter from her hair, the glow from her personality. She knew the result of smallpox. She saw herself, a little, washed-out, yellow-skinned woman, with weak eyes and drab-coloured hair.
Oh, why had she ever called Michael's attention to the saint? If he had not gone to his rescue, he would have died where he fell, bathed in the blood-red light of the afterglow. Why had Michael been such a fool as to touch him and nurse him? Had she not warned him that the fanatic was filthy and probably infectious? And, to make matters still worse, to leave no room for chance, she had of her own will flung herself into Michael's arms! Her determination to subject his will to hers, to triumph over Margaret, had brought her to this! Michael was further from her than ever. She had disgusted him; his only thought for her now was his desire to make her as religious as himself. She had to admit her defeat.
And this was how it had ended! Michael, the mystic, the quixotic idiot, had taken into his camp a creature sick with smallpox, and she, Millicent, had probably contracted it by her act of rashness! The desert seemed scarcely large enough to hold her anger. It stifled and exhausted her.
During dinner very little was spoken between the two, for Millicent was devastated by her own terrors and Michael was making plans for the sick man's isolation. His tent must remain where it was, while Michael's own, and all the servants', except those inhabited by the men who wished to nurse the saint, must be moved to a safe distance. Millicent's going was driven from his mind.
Millicent was thankful that Michael did not notice how little she ate at dinner. The servant did; nothing passes a native's eye. He knew the woman's terror.
Soon after their coffee was served they separated, Millicent going to her own tent and Michael to consult with Abdul. When Millicent reached her tent and had managed to compose her mind, she sent for Hassan. Half an hour later he left her. He had much to do. The Sitt's orders were comprehensive.
* * * * * *
Michael went early to bed. He was very tired. At about two o'clock in the morning he stirred in his sleep. Was he hearing the distant sound of camels roaring, or was he dreaming? He was too lazy to find out. If there were jackals prowling about, the night-guards would see to them. Undoubtedly something had disturbed him, for as a rule he slept without moving the long night through.
Conscious of feeling deliciously sleepy and totally indifferent to anything but his own comfort, he soon fell asleep again. In his dreams he heard again the liquid sound of bells—mule bells and camel bells—growing fainter and fainter as the animals travelled into the distance.