"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, "he came to tell me that the holy man had smallpox."
"And you forgot your love?" Margaret said.
"It was swallowed up in fear, in anger. I was so furious at Michael's rash generosity. I had warned him that the man might be suffering from some contagious malady, but I never dreamed of smallpox."
"It was horrible!" Margaret said. "And Michael has never said a word about it."