Margaret returned his steadfast gaze. "Yes, it was not hard to trust you, Mike. I remembered our promise to help and trust one another. What are promises and vows made for if they are not to be kept when they are put to the test? We did not make ours lightly—I told you I should understand."
"Dearest, how beautiful your love is! To-day you welcomed me without one shadow of reproach! Had I not read in your eyes all that I did, I should not have dared to follow you when you left the train."
"Would you have taken me in your arms if you had been guilty, if Millicent had told the truth?" The words conveyed a world of meaning to Michael. "I have often grumbled, Mike—I have thought that you might have let me hear the story from your own lips, or by letter. I know that in his heart Freddy always thought you were only to be blamed for allowing her to stay in your camp—I know he never really believed that you had arranged the meeting, or that you were her lover."
Michael grasped her two hands in his, tightly. "I never was, Meg, I never was! I hated her for coming, I tried to get rid of her."
"I knew it, Mike—deep, deep down I knew it. But it hurt." She leaned against him. "Oh, how it hurt, dearest! And you never wrote or explained—that was what I found hardest to bear. I suppose you were so certain that I trusted you that you never thought about what others might say; but love makes us exacting, jealous, and you might have written, dearest! Then Freddy would have known. How could I make him understand all that my heart knew? How can one make others see the things which come from within?"
Michael put his arms round her. "My darling," he said, "I did write, I wrote often. I wrote directly Millicent appeared in the desert; I wrote again before I was ill. You know how many letters go astray—you know how many were intercepted by German spies before the war broke out."
"You were ill?" Meg started. "I knew you were, I told Freddy you were ill. But Millicent spoke as if you were in such perfect health that I had to abandon the conviction."
Her voice was an apology.
"I was so ill with fever," Michael said, "that I wasn't able to write, and the faithful Abdul couldn't. Like many Arabs, he can speak a smattering, and a very fair one, of three or four languages, but he can't write a line in any one of them. As soon as I was strong enough to travel I went back to the Valley."
"Oh, did you?" He felt Margaret tremble as she said the words.