JAMES

I ignored this letter, but a heavy fear oppressed me. Liu Kanghi, who called the evening of the day I received it, remarked as he arose to greet me that I was looking troubled, and hoped that it was not the embroidery flowers.

“It is the shadow from my big hat,” I answered lightly. I was dressed for going down town with Mrs. Liu who was preparing her eldest daughter’s trousseau.

“Some day,” said Liu Kanghi earnestly, “I hope that you will tell to me all that is in your heart and mind.”

I found comfort in his kind face.

“If you will wait until I return, I will tell you all tonight,” I answered.

Strange as it may seem, although I had known Liu Kanghi now for more than a year, I had had little talk alone with him, and all he knew about me was what he had learned from Mrs. Liu; namely, that I was a divorced woman who, when saved from self-destruction, was homeless and starving.

That night, however, after hearing my story, he asked me to be his wife. He said: “I love you and would protect you from all trouble. Your child shall be as my own.”

I replied: “I appreciate your love and kindness, but I cannot answer you just yet. Be my friend for a little while longer.”

“Do you have for me the love feeling?” he asked.

“I do not know,” I answered truthfully.

Another letter came. It was written in a different spirit from the first and contained a threat about the child.

There seemed but one course open to me. That was to leave my Chinese friends. I did. With much sorrow and regret I bade them goodbye, and took lodgings in a part of the city far removed from the outskirts of Chinatown where my home had been with the Lius. My little girl pined for her Chinese playmates, and I myself felt strange and lonely; but I knew that if I wished to keep my child I could no longer remain with my friends.

I still continued working for Liu Kanghi, and carried my embroidery to his store in the evening after the little one had been put to sleep. He usually escorted me back; but never asked to be allowed, and I never invited him, to visit me, or even enter the house. I was a young woman, and alone, and what I had suffered from scandal since I had left James Carson had made me wise.

It was a cold, wet evening in November when he accosted me once again. I had run over to a delicatessen store at the corner of the block where I lived. As I stepped out, his burly figure loomed up in the gloom before me. I started back with a little cry, but he grasped my arm and held it.

“Walk beside me quietly if you do not wish to attract attention,” said he, “and by God, if you do, I will take the kid tonight!”