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Miss Mabie’s interview with Chin Fook was short but courteous, particularly courteous on the side of the Oriental. Miss Mabie nearly lost her temper once or twice for this very reason. He had explained to her in good English, that he did not want his daughter Fon brought up as a Christian, because while he thought Jesus’ teachings were very good, Buddha’s were older and better, and there was nothing Christ had not said that the earlier teacher had not said before him. He was very much obliged to Miss Mabie for teaching his child English, he believed a certain amount of education good for every woman; and when Miss Mabie had rather hotly retorted something about the slavery of Oriental women with their “certain amount of education”, Chin Fook had quietly and smilingly replied that at least Eastern women had not yet learned to shun the highest and noblest responsibility of their sex, that of bearing children, and jocularly he had added, “In one hundred years, Miss Mabie, there shall be no more sons of white women; then the conquest of this country shall be an easy task for the child-bearing peoples.”

At the last Miss Mabie was forced to fall back upon the lame excuse that Fon did not want to go home with her father. To which the latter shrugged his shoulders expressively and conveyed to Miss Mabie a dozen insinuations by that one gesture.

“At length the Chinese girl stood up.”

So Fon was called into the room, where she huddled beside her teacher’s chair, and her father standing in the middle of the floor, with a bland smile and a lazy grace, talked to her very rapidly in Chinese, of which Miss Mabie understood not a word, and to which Fon made ejaculatory and monosyllabic responses. At length the Chinese child stood up, “I will go with him”, she said in a low voice.

“But you don’t want to go, Fon.” Miss Mabie caught the girl’s hand, and drew her around to face her. “You don’t want to go, do you?”

Fon’s face for one moment expressed sick fear, and a wild appeal, then it assumed its usual sweetly docile mask. “I will go with him,” she repeated.

Miss Mabie told the man that if he would have the goodness to go, as soon as she could get Fon’s clothes together she would bring the girl to his house herself. Chin said he would wait. Miss Mabie said it would take too long. Chin said Fon would not require the clothes anyway, because he did not believe in the English style of dress the child was wearing.

“Very well, wait, then,” said Miss Mabie, and still keeping Fon’s hand, she drew her from the room, and they went upstairs together. The Chinese girl was told to pack her small belongings in her small matting bag, and then Miss Mabie went into her sitting-room to telephone to Mr. Brenton, reporter on The Call and her usual “very pleasant help in time of trouble”.

“It’s Alice speaking,” she told him. “Paul, I wish you would come up here.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Can you come instantly?”

“Unless you’re being held up, or have taken poison by mistake, I can’t. It would cost me my job. You caught me just as I was leaving to take the boat to V——. I’ve got three minutes to listen to you.”

“What do you know about Chin Fook?”

“Let me see, let me see, Chin Fook—silk merchant, building the new Oriental hotel in Chinatown. Worth a million probably. Decent sort of man to deal with. Credited or discredited with six wives and one of ’em a white woman. Recently returned from China. Lived in this city ten years off and on. Said to be highly connected with Chinese royal family. Don’t believe it, but undoubtedly a superior sort.”

“It’s his daughter, Fon, who has been staying with me, off and on since he has been absent in China.”

“One of your Chinese class, eh?”

“Yes, and now he’s come home, and he wants her to leave me altogether.”

“A father’s privilege.”

“Paul, he’s not a father. He’s a cold, cruel, calculating, fat beast. How can he know anything about fatherhood with six wives? Besides, one of the little girls in my class, Fon’s cousin, told me in secrecy, that Chin Fook is not Fon’s father at all. He drove up here in his motor car two days ago, and when he saw Fon, his eyes fairly glistened, and she was so frightened of him, I thought she was going to faint. He told her he wanted her at home now that her mother was dead; she died about a year ago, I believe, Fon was with me at the time. And to-day he came to take Fon away. All last night the poor child lay wide awake, and over and over again, she would beg me not to let her go. It’s been terrible, Paul. Listen to me.”

“I am listening,” Paul replied.

“I am perfectly sure Chin Fook is a slave dealer. I have no proof beyond my own intuition, but I feel certain he wants to sell Fon to some one. She has grown so pretty, so charming. There was a Chinaman with him yesterday, a perfectly hideous creature. Fon would not speak about him. In fact, she won’t tell me anything, but she looks at me with dumb, appealing eyes, and I know she trusts me to help her. What can I do? Fon is not like those other Chinese women and girls you see about. She has ideals, Paul, beautiful ideals, and for six months she has been going to service with me regularly. Paul, I must do something, I simply must.”

“Where is Chin?”

“Downstairs waiting for her. What if I lock her up, Paul, and refuse to let him have her?”

“It wouldn’t do at all, Alice, you would only get into trouble. You are not an Oriental, and you can’t understand them. You are investing Fon with some of your own sweet attributes, but in reality she’s Chinese and nothing can make her anything else. I wish I could come up and see you, but I can’t. You know the Chinese are like fish, cold-blooded. Fon is grieved at having to part with you, that’s all. She’ll get over it. There’s no common ground on which West can meet East, and our breed and theirs is as far apart as the poles. For heaven’s sake, don’t let Chin know your suspicions. Pretend friendliness, if you want to keep in touch with your protégé, but, believe me, it won’t do very much good, so far as changing Fon’s nature goes. Well, good-bye, Alice. You have known a long time how I feel about these subjects. Be a good girl, and don’t worry.”

“Paul you are as cold-blooded as a fish yourself. I am going up to Fon now, and if she will consent to stay with me, I’ll lock the doors against Chin Fook.”

“Alice presented herself at the shop.”

“Don’t do it, Alice.”

“Good-bye, Paul.”

But when Miss Mabie returned to Fon’s bedroom, it was to find it empty; and all search of the small house failed to reveal any trace of either Chin Fook or the girl.

      *      *      *      *      *      

At five o’clock Alice presented herself before one of the long counters in Chin’s silk shop. There were several American tourists examining embroidered linens and talking in very loud voices, evidently labouring under the impression common to most English-speaking people that natives of all foreign countries must necessarily be a little deaf. They turned to look at Alice with frank and friendly admiration. But the Chinaman who came to serve her wore an expression of bored indifference.

“Where is Chin Fook?” she asked.

“Not in,” laconically replied the Chinaman.

“I must see him,” said Alice.

“He not here. Come back eight o’clock.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes—sure.”

“I want to see his brother then, his brother Lee.”

“Jes’ minute.” Alice watched, as he ambled slowly to the back of the shop and disappeared under the stairs. Presently he returned accompanied by a small, stout man who wore glasses, and smiled benignly upon Alice.

“How do you do?” said she, trying to return the smile.

“How do you,” he replied, “you velly well?”

“Thank you,” Alice nodded. “Did your brother bring Fon here, a few hours ago?”

The first Chinaman had been hovering behind the other man and now at a sharp word from the latter, slowly and reluctantly withdrew.

“I know no,” Lee told Alice. “I jes’ come in mysel’.”

“Where is your little girl? Where is Bit?”

“She go play somewhere. I know no.”

Alice looked about her slowly and comprehensively. For all she knew Fon and her other little pupils so well, she had never been at the home of any of them, and was not sure whether Fon lived over the store as did the families of most of the Chinese merchants, or in quite another part of the town. She looked at the closed wooden door at the back of the long store, at the little door under the stairs through whose glass a dim oil lamp could be seen burning; looked up the narrow stairway to another closed door, and there while she watched, the curtain of the glass was drawn back, and for a brief moment she saw Fon’s face, swollen with weeping, the lips white, the eyes entreating. The curtain dropped almost instantly and the face was gone, but Alice without a moment’s hesitation walked toward the stairway, the Chinaman following her up. Up the steps she walked and straight to the door. She tried the knob. The door was locked.

“Open this,” she said to Lee, “Fon is in here.”

He looked a little troubled, but smiled as he shook his head.

“Please,” entreated Alice softly. “I want to speak to her. She went away to-day without saying ‘good-bye’ to me. I would like to see her.”

“You come to-night,” said Lee in a kindly tone, “Come eight o’clock. Chin Fook here then.”

“Won’t you please let me speak to her now?” asked Alice.

Again the Chinaman shook his head. “Velly solly,” he said. “Chin Fook say ‘no’. I can not. Velly glad see you to-night eight o’clock.”

And Alice, much disturbed at heart, but trying to keep an untroubled countenance, followed Lee down the stairs, held her chin a little high as she passed the survey of the tourists’ inquisitive eyes, and, reaching the doorway of the shop, was bowed ceremoniously away by Lee.

      *      *      *      *      *      

Alice had eaten no luncheon and when she sat down with her sister Annie to their dinner, she found she had no appetite. Annie was away all day teaching in a primary school outside the city limits. Their evenings were the only times the sisters had together. Fon’s tear-stained face, and terror-haunted eyes were constantly before Alice; she could talk of nothing but what she called the “kidnapping” of her little friend. Annie was sympathetic but very tired. When Alice announced her intention of going out to try to see Fon, her sister endeavoured to dissuade her, and while they were arguing about it, a ring at the front door bell interrupted them. Alice responded and found a Chinaman, whose face looked oddly familiar, and yet whose identity she could not fix. He handed her a note, and then ran away down the street as fast as he could go. Alice looked after him, puzzled for a moment, then opened her letter. It was in Fon’s writing:

“Dear Miss Alice,” it ran, “I write to say good-bye and God bless you. I was in much hurry to-day. I like to see you again, but better not. Have good memory of me. I will try and be good. Chin Fook is kind to me. Fon.” Then underneath these very carefully penned lines were some hardly legible words, looking as if the writer had been under great stress:

“Come to-night. I watch for you to the doorway on Ogilvie Street. Come for Jesus’ sake.”

When the letter was shown to Annie she was more insistent than ever that Alice should not go out of the house that night, but Alice was very white-faced and determined. Besides she told Annie she would run no risk; eight o’clock was early, it did not get dark until nine. There would be lots of shoppers in Chin Fook’s, and whoever heard of a white woman being harmed in Chinatown anyway.

The streets were crowded with the usual Saturday night throng and Chinatown was as noisy and noisome as ever. Alice walked rapidly. Her neat frock, her dark hat, her small black boots were inconspicuous enough, but the plainness of her attire did nothing to hide the bright loveliness of her young face, the shining gold of her soft hair, or the slim beauty of her figure.

The obsequious Lee was busy attending some customers when she entered the store, but he left them, and going to Alice asked her to follow him into the office, a small room, which took in one of the front windows, and was separated from the rest of the shop by a partition which reached halfway to the ceiling. Chin Fook was there alone.

Alice sat down when he had invited her to do so, and then without any preamble he came straight to the point, speaking quietly, formally, and sitting in his own chair behind the desk.

It was best, he told her, that she should not see Fon at present. The girl was upset naturally at leaving her, but she was very sensible and amenable and would become reconciled in a very little while. He thought it had been a mistake for Fon to have seen quite so much of Miss Mabie. True, he had been glad, as had other Chinese friends, to have the children taught by so capable a lady, and if Miss Mabie had gone a little farther than they had intended in trying to instil Western ideas into Eastern children’s minds, she was acting according to her own opinions of what was fitting, and they had no fault to find with her. Most of the children whom she taught would continue to live in Canada, and such teaching would do no harm. But for Fon he had different plans. She would return to China in the course of two or three years, marry a man of his choosing, and raise her sons and daughters as befitted the children of a Chinese dignitary. “We are a very old people,” he said, smiling almost paternally. “But we are glad to learn from younger nations what is new, when it is worth knowing. Yet, some of our own institutions have stood the test of time, and we have yet to find that they can be improved upon.”

Now Alice knew nothing whatever about Chinese institutions, nothing whatever about Chinese religions and philosophies. She looked upon the whole nation as benighted heathen, in spite of the fact that the fathers of some of her pupils spoke English as well as she did herself, and had a breadth and tolerance of thought, which she, uncomprehending, and unappreciating, looked upon as further evidence of their immorality. Alice was very young, very lovely, and very charming, but her ancestors had been Puritans, and she had inherited something of their narrowness of view, a fault which the breadth and freedom and unconventionality of the West would in time overcome, but which at present invested her with a zeal for missionary work, which was almost Jesuitical. She looked coldly and gravely upon Chin.

“Why did you and Fon leave my house without telling me?” she asked. The Chinaman shrugged his shoulders.

“Fon came down stairs and asked that we go at once,” he said. Alice’s large eyes expressed her frank unbelief of this statement, and Chin smiled again.

“Whom do you want Fon to marry?” she asked peremptorily, but with no idea at all of being impertinent.

“You would not understand,” said Chin patiently. “In one month you come again and see Fon. We shall be moved then into my new house on the corner of Glenwood and Oak streets.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Mabie stiffly, getting up to go. Chin handed her a sealed envelope.

“The amount due you,” he said, and then tendering her a receipt book, “Please sign.”

Alice did not linger longer. She wanted to ask a dozen questions, make several accusations, but somehow her tongue refused its office. She felt sick with disappointment, and angry and utterly baffled by Chin’s calmness of demeanour. She went out of the shop, and into the night with her mind in a turmoil. Pausing for a moment at the edge of the sidewalk she looked up at the windows above her. No sign of life there. The blinds were closely drawn. Some pots of flowers stood on the little balcony, over the doorway to the shop, tall chrysanthemums, not yet in bloom, and white and red peonies. Alice walked past the shop and around the corner farther into the heart of Chinatown. She was not sure whether Ogilvie street was to the right or the left of Chin Fook’s premises. Somewhere a clock struck nine. A man jostled against her with a muttered apology, and then turned around to stare after her. She did not notice him. The shops on the side street were small and mean, their windows dimly lit, and containing a vastly unattractive assortment of unnamable Chinese edibles. There were few people about and those few Chinamen, who looked with furtive curiosity at the girl. Having come to the conclusion that the doorway which Fon specified must be in the street above, she was about to retrace her steps, when the sound of a child crying softly arrested her. Just ahead of her was a dark alley between two shops, a little boy stood there in the shadow sobbing wearily. Alice, her warm heart responding instantly to the appeal, drew the little chap out into the light of a street lamp. He was neither Chinese nor white, but something of both. The girl’s being recoiled. This was one of the tragedies of the West, the tragedies that always made Paul so chokingly indignant. The child spoke English. His mother had whipped him, he said; he was waiting for his father, his father was good to him, and while he spoke the father came, a nondescript Chinaman to whom the little chap ran with a cry of pleasure, and was lifted to the man’s shoulder and carried into the dark passage. Alice shuddered and turned away, walking swiftly. Looking over the roofs of the little low shops, she could see the back windows above Chin Fook’s store, and while she looked at them, one of them was opened, and a sleek little head thrust out, which Alice believed to belong to Fon. It was quickly withdrawn, so quickly that it seemed to her as if some one had pulled the owner forcibly back. Alice clinched her little teeth. Fon must be set free, to that she had made up her mind. Little Fon, gentle, pretty, confiding Fon, only sixteen last month, should not be forced into marriage or slavery by Chin Fook—Chin Fook with his six wives and one of them a white woman; Chin with his cold, unfeeling face, and his little, shining, appraising eyes, his yellow hands with their long, pointed, polished nails, and his forty years or more of unrighteous living. Alice walked past the silk shop, past the tea shop which adjoined it, past the furniture shop where they were holding a sale of sea-grass chairs, and where even yet there were many shoppers, past the barber shop, from whose open door unspeakable odours came, in which highly-scented soap played the least objectionable part, and so on, until she had come to the end of the block and turned the corner. Ah, here was the entrance to the dwelling portion of the block, the first entrance on Ogilvie street. She was sure of it now, for a small sign-board at the corner bore the names of the intersecting streets. She entered the doorway boldly, her heart beating a little fast, but her head held high, and her eyes full of courage. A long flight of steps was before her, she ran up them, and opened the door at the top, finding herself in a small dimly-lit hall. Here she paused for a moment, and while she waited, debating what step to take next, which one of the several doors that opened off the hall, to knock upon, one of them opened softly and a woman came towards her, a middle-aged, gray-haired woman, who held her finger to her lips.

“‘I am Alice Mabie’, said the girl in a whisper.”

“I am Alice Mabie,” said the girl in a whisper.

“I know,” the other nodded. “Fon explained to me. Come along, I will take care of you. Fon is not here. They are taking her to V——, but if we get down to the boat at once, I think we can manage to intercept them. She is at the Angel Hotel.”

“Then it was not she I saw looking out of the window a few minutes ago?”

The woman seemed puzzled. “Oh, no,” she said, “it couldn’t have been. Fon is waiting at the hotel until it is time for the boat to leave. But she expects you, she is looking for you, poor little child.”

      *      *      *      *      *      

Annie Mabie waited until ten o’clock, and then when her sister had not returned she telephoned The Call office for Mr. Brenton. Hearing that he was away, she telephoned Chin Fook, and got no reply: then she put on her hat and coat and went to a friend’s house, where she enlisted the services of Mr. Thornton, who played in the orchestra at one of the vaudeville houses, but who like many another had much more ability and ambition than his position called for. Mr. Thornton had just come home, and was “dog-tired”, but Annie Mabie was only one degree less lovely and charming than Alice, and so he accompanied her with great avidity.

They walked rapidly toward Chinatown, and Thornton tried to laugh Annie’s fears away, and to persuade her that Alice was being entertained by Fon and her father, who would probably bring her home in his motor car. But Thornton was not without misgivings himself. The crowds were thinning, and Chinatown was comparatively quiet, the shops closed, and closing. At Chin’s silk store the blinds were drawn, the door padlocked, and the place in darkness. They retraced their steps to a chemist’s shop, and Annie remained at the telephone twenty minutes calling up one place and another that Alice might by chance have gone. Finally she turned away with a very white face, and her eyes, dark with apprehension, questioned Thornton.

“What shall we do?” she asked.

“She may be home now,” he said cheerily. “Call up your house.”

Annie did so without result.

“Then we must go and rouse up Chin.” Thornton took her arm, as they left the store and pressed it reassuringly. “She’s quite all right, depend upon it,” but his own voice broke a little. The city clock struck the quarter before midnight. Late stayers were hurrying into last cars, taxis and motors from the theatres were flying homeward. “She may have gone to a show with some one,” suggested Thornton.

“No,” whispered Annie, “she’d never do that, knowing I was waiting for her, and anxious. We must go to Chin’s.”

Thornton led the way to a little doorway, a very inconspicuous little doorway, between two of the shops. He opened the outside door and rang the bell of the inner door. He rang three times before his summons was answered.

Five minutes later they were in Chin’s office, questioning the Chinaman, who told them of his interview with Alice early in the evening; of how he had given her her money, and she had left him to go home.

“How much money?” asked Thornton.

“Fifty dollars.”

“But you did not owe her——” began Annie.

Chin shook his head. “I owed her thirty-five dollars; my brother Lee and I owed her thirty-five dollars for the last three months, but she has been so kind to——”

“Did anyone know that you were to pay Miss Mabie this sum to-night?” interrupted Thornton.

Chin shook his head again. “No one except my brother. She teaches his little girl, too, you understand.”

“Could anyone have overheard you telling him about it?”

“No. He was with me only about five minutes before Miss Mabie came in. He and I were in this office alone.”

“You paid her in this office?”

“Yes.”

“The partition is low, some one might have heard, might even have climbed up and seen. Were there many people in the store?”

“Yes, a great many more than we could serve. There was an excursion from S——. But I handed her the money in an envelope. It was in ten dollar bills”—the Chinaman’s face was puzzled. “No, I don’t think any one could have heard or seen.”

“I’m not so sure,” Thornton shook his head.

“Did she see Fon?” asked Annie.

“No.” Chin looked kindly at the girl’s panic-stricken face. “No, my little girl is too much distressed. I could not permit it. I am sorry. But it would make it much harder, and—”

“Where is your daughter? She might know something,” Thornton suggested.

“She is asleep, I suppose.”

“May I see her?” Annie clasped her hands beseechingly. “Please let me see her, I have something very important to ask her.”

Chin went away and in the course of ten minutes returned, followed by Fon, who shuffled along in little white Chinese shoes embroidered in silver, and who was wrapped in a blue mandarin coat. Her hair hung in two wide plaits over her shoulders, and her face was like a waxen-white anemone.

Without any preface Annie asked her about the note which had been sent to Alice, and the girl admitted writing it, though to Annie’s surprise Chin seemed to know all about it, too. She did not mention the contents of the note then, and after telephoning to their own house once more, and failing to get a reply, Annie got up and said huskily that they must go and look elsewhere.

Chin accompanied them to the sidewalk. He was evidently much concerned. He suggested that they lose no time in consulting the police, and begged them to call upon him at any hour if they needed his services.

      *      *      *      *      *      

The moment that Paul Brenton got off the boat the next morning, he hailed a taxi cab, jumped in and was driven to the Mabies’ house. Annie met him white-faced as a ghost, and half stupefied with anxiety. In answer to Paul’s rapid queries, she had nothing new to tell, and she broke out into little dry sobs now and then, that were heart-rending to listen to.

“Did you see the Chinaman that brought the note?” asked Brenton.

Annie shook her head, and Alice had taken the note with her, she explained. Fon had admitted writing the letter, but this morning when more closely questioned, she declared she knew nothing whatever of the latter part of the note, that she had not wanted Alice to come and see her again until it would be easier to say “good-bye”.

“We must find the Chinaman who brought the letter,” said Brenton.

“We can’t,” said Annie. “He did not come back to Chin’s shop this morning and no one has seen him since. Anyway, I don’t believe Fon. I think she did write the whole note, but is afraid to confess it, and I am afraid Alice has gone to the wrong place. I have forgotten what the note said, except that the last message was very urgent.”

“Did it mention a street and number?”

“I think it mentioned a street, but I didn’t take any notice of the name. I didn’t want Alice to go; I begged her not to go.”

“What is the police’s theory?”

“They think that someone overheard them talking in the store, and followed her for the money—or—they think—”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Paul patted Annie’s shoulder soothingly. “But we are not going to give up, little woman, or jump to wild conclusions.”

“Before she went out, I made her take the little revolver you left,” Annie told Paul, to which he replied that that was the best piece of news he had heard. Then he kissed Annie very gravely on the forehead, and because he had never kissed Alice, and yet was claiming a brother’s privilege with Alice’s sister, he blushed very much, and then turned quite pale, and when he tried to speak he could not, for a little while. “But I’ll find her,” he told Annie as he went away. “You just watch me. We’ll have her home to-night—and then—if she will have me—she won’t need to teach those little heathen. After next month, I’ll be night editor.” He smiled wanly, and Annie tried to smile, too.

The police were working on a clue that led them to S——, following some suspicious characters who had been among the excursionists. Thornton was inclined to a hold-up theory, but Brenton had his own opinions and he enlisted the services of Chin Fook, who was more than eager to assist. About four o’clock in the afternoon, Sin Fat, the young Oriental who had brought the note to Alice, and who proved to be the same one who had served her in the shop the afternoon before, was unearthed. While Paul looked on, Chin interrogated his one-time clerk. They were in a small room at the back of a fish shop, lit by a smoky oil lamp and smelling like the inside of a glue-pot. Chin shot his questions at the quailing Chinaman, who seemed to writhe under the rapid fire of them. At length the merchant turned to Paul.

“He says some one else wrote that message at the bottom of my daughter’s note to Miss Mabie. He says he has been in the employ of the Sangster woman——”

“Good G—!” ejaculated Paul, springing toward Sin Fat.

Chin held up an admonitory hand. “If you frighten him too much,” he said, “he will tell nothing more. Wait.” Again he spoke rapidly to the other Chinaman, who answered hesitatingly, sullenly. The three left the room and went through the fish shop into the street, walking rapidly.

Through the doorway which Alice had entered the night before they went, and up the stairs into the hall. There was no sign of life. Brenton unlocked all three of the doors which opened off the hall. Two of them led into rooms, unfurnished now, and one of them into a long, dimly-lit passage. Off this passage were various rooms, the doors of which were not locked. They were all furnished identically the same, a highly polished bed, dressing-table, and wash-stand, two upholstered chairs, and a square of carpet, and they were all empty. In the last room at the end of the passage, the three men stopped, and Brenton and Chin looked at one another.

“The Sangster woman has had word,” said Paul jerkily.

Chin spoke to the other Chinaman, who sat in one of the chairs, a dejected and thoroughly cowed creature. Their dialogue lasted some moments and afterwards Chin interpreted.

“He’s been lying to us,” said he. “The Sangster woman left here last night for Vancouver on the midnight boat, and was to take Miss Mabie with her. She rented this place from me two weeks ago, but the police told me who she was and I ordered her out. The women she had with her left last week, and she was to go to-morrow. She saw Miss Mabie in my store two or three times when she came here with Fon, and she spoke to Sin Fat about her. Yesterday he overheard my brother tell her to come to my place at eight o’clock. Then he went to Fon and advised her to write Miss Mabie a letter, saying he would carry it for her. Fon did write it, and she showed it to me, and I let him take it, for I had no suspicions. He went to the Sangster woman, who added something to the note, trying to write like my daughter as though my daughter was much troubled and in haste. Sin Fat swears he knows nothing more, except that he gave the note to Miss Mabie, but for this, he shall die at latest to-morrow morning.” Chin spoke slowly and carefully, and with ominous calmness, but his dark eyes burned in his yellow face.

Brenton’s own face was ghastly.

“Ask him what other place the Sangster woman frequents in town,” he said huskily.

Chin spoke sharply to Sin Fat, the other did not answer at first. Chin walked over to him, and without any warning, leaned above him and thrust his long fingers about the other man’s throat. The room was very still, horribly still for a few moments, and then the sounds which came from the chair were indescribably horrible. At last Chin moved away from his victim.

“He will speak when he gets his breath,” he said. But the other Chinaman lay quite inert, his head hanging over the chair arm. Brenton took a jug of water from the wash-stand and threw some of the contents in the face of the fainting man, who revived presently and told Chin what he wanted to know.

Brenton and Chin left Sin Fat in the custody of the police, and went together to the water front. They entered a dingy hotel, in the office of which Chin remained, while Brenton went upstairs alone. He went up the front stairs and down the back stairs and out into a square-shaped yard, not as untidy as might be expected, and where a single tall poplar tree grew and a great deal of ivy covered the back walls of the brick buildings which hemmed it in. Opposite the back of the hotel was a flight of steps leading into a three story brick house. Brenton climbed the steps, and knocked at the door. A Chinaman opened it. Brenton said “Victory.” The Chinaman nodded, looked at him keenly with unblinking black eyes, then motioned him to follow, and led the way into the house. There was a kitchen to traverse, a dingy dining room, a dark hall, then more steps and another hall. The Chinaman moved without the slightest sound, and Brenton unconsciously taking his cue from him, went on tiptoe.

“She’s at the end there, in room to left,” the Chinaman stopped and whispered. “I’ll wait in hall down stairs. S’pose you want me, you call, all lite?” and he smiled unblinkingly.

“All right,” said Brenton tersely.

“Miss Sangster she say tell you she come back to-mollow night, all lite?”

“All right,” again responded Brenton, his throat was parched and the words came jerkily. He walked to the end of the dark hall, and rapped softly on the door indicated at. At first no stir, no sound answered him. He rapped louder. Then a voice came to him, wavering low.

“If you come into this room I shall shoot you at once.”

“Alice.” Brenton spoke close to the crack of the door. “It is I, Paul.”

There came the sound of a low cry. Brenton turned the knob and entered. Alice Mabie leaned against the foot of a bed in a small, dimly-lit room, whose one window was high in the wall and barred. She wore her neat, little suit, and her neat little hat, only her hair was a little disordered, and one or two curling strands hung about her cheeks. Her face was ashen white and purple shadows lay under her heavy eyes. One hand held fast to the iron railing of the bed behind her, her other hand clutched a small revolver, which she still pointed at arm’s length in front of her.

“Put down the revolver, dear,” said Paul, coming toward her.

She dropped her outstretched arm. “It isn’t loaded,” she whispered. “It never has been loaded.”

She leaned against him with a little shaking sob, as he put his arms around her, and he unclasped her fingers from the bed, and took the revolver from her stiff clasp, lifting her hands to his lips. Then his self-control gave way entirely. “Alice, Alice,” he whispered hoarsely, and he bowed his head over hers, and for a little while neither of them spoke.

“Alice,” he whispered after a few moments, and he held her away to peer into her eyes. “Alice, my sweet, has anyone hurt you?”

She shook her head. “No one has touched me, Paul, no one. But all night, since that woman left, and all day, I have stood there where you found me, just watching like that and waiting. I have had nothing to eat, or drink, and yet I have not felt hungry or tired at all until now, though sometimes the room would seem to go around and around. She told me the man would come back again to-day.”

“The man, what man?”

“I have puzzled it all out, Paul, while I have been waiting here,” Alice said, not answering him directly. “That note the Chinaman brought me was not all in Fon’s writing, the last part of it was written by some one else. You see it was not Chin’s house I went to at all, though at first I did not guess. The woman said Chin was taking Fon to V—— and that they were down here in this house. She seemed a kind woman, and I thought she cried when she spoke about Fon being so unhappy, and wanting me so much. We came to this place together, and up to this room, she said Fon was here. She pushed me in and then closed the door and went away. There was some one here, a man. I did not see him at first. He was about as tall as you, and in the dim light looked like you, for just a minute I thought it was you, then I saw more plainly and at once I knew. I took the revolver out of my pocket—and God gave me courage—” her voice broke, but in a moment she had regained her self-control.

“The man did not come near me. He only laughed a little, and went quickly to the door, going out and locking it. Later the woman came back and spoke through the keyhole. She said they would keep me here until hunger and thirst overcame me, and that the man would come back to-day. It struck one o’clock just after she went away. I had some milk chocolate in my pocket, and I ate that, I thought I must try and keep up my strength. But I don’t know, I don’t know, if you hadn’t come, Paul—If you hadn’t come just when you did—”

“There, there,” said Brenton softly, as the girl leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed a little, chokingly trying to restrain herself. He smoothed her hair with a hand that trembled, but his lips were set and his eyes hard as steel. Presently she asked:

“Can we get away, Paul?”

“Yes, dear.”

While she took off her hat and smoothed her hair, he brushed her coat and skirt with his handkerchief, smiling into her eyes so tenderly that she could not guess at the passion for retribution in his heart. He took her arm and led her from the room. The Chinaman at the foot of the stair they passed without a glance, traversing the house and finding their way out into the yard. There was no one to intercept them. They passed through the hotel, avoiding the office, and found Chin in his motor waiting for them in the street outside. He drove them to Alice’s home, and a little later went with Paul to the police station.

Sin Fat was found dead by his own hand in his cell the next morning, and the Sangster woman was apprehended on her return to the city and the justice of the law meted out to her.

      *      *      *      *      *      

Two months later Alice and Paul were married, and among the presents was a handsome check from Chin Fook, and a wonderfully carved cabinet from Fon. But Alice did not go to see her little protégé for a twelve-month. Fon had written her a letter telling her that she was “never so happy in all her life,” and Alice preferred to believe her. Mr. and Mrs. Brenton went to England to visit Paul’s people and it was while they were there that Paul told Alice Fon’s rather romantic history. The little Chinese girl had been given to Chin Fook while she was still a baby and had been brought up when Chin married, with his own children. Her father had been Chin’s dearest friend, but he had died poor and unable to provide for his daughter. It had been arranged before his death that when the time came for Fon to marry, Chin should wed her if he pleased. Needless to say, he did please, and when after his return to Canada he found his adopted child grown to charming womanhood, he did not wish to delay the marriage. The ardour of his wooing frightened Fon at first, and knowing Miss Mabie’s convictions she had not wished her to learn the truth. But Chin was both kind and generous, and Fon had a loving and quickly responsive heart.

One afternoon when Paul and Alice had returned home, they went by special invitation to take tea at Chin Fook’s house at the corner of Glenwood and Oak streets. Chin was leaving for China in a few weeks and taking Fon with him, and they did not expect to return to Canada. Chin’s house was a large one of mixed architecture, and it had half an acre or more of a garden full of flowers, and a wide verandah enclosed with matting blinds. It was here that Fon and Chin received their guests, Chin as calm and dignified as ever, and Fon wholly adorable in a wonderfully embroidered pale blue satin coat and trousers, and shoes of blue embossed with gold. Her abundant hair, guiltless of grease was dressed high on her small head, and she wore earrings an inch long in her tiny ears. Chin was vastly proud of her, and the four of them conversed animatedly and cheerfully. Presently, Mrs. Chin at a smiling word from her husband, excused herself and disappeared in the front door, returning presently, her face faintly flushed, her head high, and a warm, shy smile in her brown eyes. On her back in a hoodlike sling, she carried a tiny mite of humanity, with a charming little round dark face, and a head covered with soft, black hair.

“Our son,” said Chin, with grave dignity, looking at Alice.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

A cover which is placed in the public domain was created for this ebook.

[The end of The East in the West by Ann de Bertrand Lugrin]