"He velly good man one time," said Li Ho. "All same before moon-devil catch 'um."
"You stayed with him a long time, Li Ho. You were a good friend."
Li Ho blinked rapidly, but made no reply.
"Will you come with us, Li Ho?" The inscrutable, oriental eyes looked for a moment into the frank eyes of the white man and then passed by them to the open door—to the dawn just turning gold above the sea. The uninjured hand rose and fell in an indescribable gesture.
"Li Ho go home now!"
The words seemed to flutter out like birds into some vast ocean of content.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Desire was waking. She had slept without a dream and woke wonderingly to the shadows of dancing leaves upon the white canvas above her. It was a long time since she had slept in a tent—a lifetime. She felt very drowsy and stupid. The brooding sense of fatality which had made her return so dreamlike still numbed her senses. She had come back to the mountain, as she had known she must come. And, curiously enough, in returning she had freed herself. In coming back to what she had hated and feared she had faced a bogie. It would trouble her no more. For all that she had lost she had gained one thing, Freedom. But even freedom did not thrill her. She was too horribly tired.
Idly she let her thought drift over the details of her home-coming. Li Ho had been so surprised. His consternation at seeing her had been comic. But he had asked no questions, and had given her breakfast in hospitable haste. In the cottage nothing was altered. It was as if she had been away overnight. And against this changelessness she knew herself changed. She was outside of it now. It could never prison her again.