“What! those lice-familiar bonzes.”
“They told——”
“Bah!”
“Women’s tears are peculiarly like rain from heaven. Every so often in the strange azure of their being are gathered fleeting rifts of storm clouds, and when these are full swoln and all rays of sunshine hid, it takes but a small clap of thunder to bring on a storm, while a world of prayer and beseechment cannot stop its flood or drizzle—as the storm may be—until self-exhausted, then one word and, like the formula of God, there is light.”
“To-morrow,” said the Breton, “I will send Tsang to see if we can go away.”
“Will you?” Again her lips, upturned, quivered with joy, and her eyes, smiling through tears, shone like stars through mists.
“Tsi,” she cried, rising and clapping her hands, “we are going away from this dreadful place.”
“That dream may turn out all right after all,” answered Tsi, “but——”
“Oh, dreams are nothing,” interrupted the wife with merriment, “unless”—looking mockingly at the Breton—“they are mist clouds of yesterday blown across to-night’s darkened dome, or as Tsang says, ‘contorted images reflected in the river of Life.’ No, Tsi, we should not worry when scholars so wise have spoken,” and she bowed roguishly to the Breton as her laughter, charming and tender, fell gratefully upon their ears. So again happiness reigned within the Tomb of Yu Ngao.