In that room there, within reach of her voice and hand! Whither had she gone, this ghost? Terror and cowardly fear had held her back from making her own presence known; and now it was too late. She had fallen asleep somewhere, back there in China, and hadn't yet waked up. That must be it! The Yellow Typhoon! And she had stumbled across the wrecks innocently—across an open grave which had never been filled! Berta, in the next room! Who, then, was in the grave in Greenwood? The malicious cruelty of it!
Very well. She would telephone this Captain Hallowell. She would warn him.
She became conscious of the unopened cablegram. She tore off the edge of the envelope. For a moment she thought there must be some mistake. Jargon. Then she awoke.
"Oh!" she cried. She ran over to her steamer-trunk and things flew about for a space. The result was a diary-book from the rear pages of which she took a folded square of tissue-paper. She sat down, cross-legged, and laid this square carefully upon a knee. Ten minutes later she had the message decoded.
Mathison. Hallowell's blue-prints. Nippon Maru. He may be followed. Sail with him. Keep in touch with Washington wireless. This is your chance.
She sprang up, found a match, and applied it to the cablegram, powdering the ashes. Alive! She was alive again. What she had stumbled upon disconnectedly was now made clear. Her chance! She had a great debt to pay, and here was the opportunity to pay it. Pay it she would, through fire and water. She would show them that there was one who could be grateful. Fame and riches and honor, she owed for these. She would pay the debt.
Singular thing! In these months of wandering in this bewildering maze of dark and yellow peoples no one had ever recognized her. And yet it wasn't so singular, if one thought it out. Her world was at home, busy with war.
She would telephone Hallowell at once and warn him that he was in danger. And the thought of him brought back the thought of Berta. The colossal irony! So be it. If Berta stood in her way, she would crush her, relentlessly, inexorably. And what was Berta? Only a wandering ghost, a lie. A phantom men called The Yellow Typhoon.
Her telephone call, however, was not answered. There was no one, apparently, at the villa in San Miguel. She would have to drive out and leave a note. Either the captain or Mathison, his friend, would find it when he returned. She found a Tagalog boy with a tough Manchurian pony, and she went clattering away into the night. The dry monsoon carried the dust along with them.