Ah Wong and the mandarin were ill matched, but better matched than he and Robert Gregory had been.

Mrs. Gregory wasted no time on preliminaries. She forgot that he was a stranger. That he was man, she woman, she forgot that she was English and he Chinese. She had but one thought, one memory—Basil. “Oh! Mr. Wu,” she pleaded—urged—at once, “if you can help us, if you could even give us your advice as to the best way of appealing to the natives or of offering a reward——”

“Ah!” Wu interjected gently, “for your sake, Mrs. Gregory—as his mother—I would do much.” He picked up his hat and moved towards the door. But Ah Wong did not trouble to move from it—she knew that he was not going yet. But Florence Gregory did not know—and she followed him a step. Wu bowed to her with the utmost courtesy, and said—as if considering the situation—“Well, we must meet again.”

“Oh! I hope so, Mr. Wu. But now—when every moment is so precious——”

“I am thinking, Mrs. Gregory, and I will not waste one of them, you may trust me.”

“I do,” she said impulsively.

Wu bent his head gratefully—perhaps, too, to veil a smile—“But I will venture to take just two of those precious moments, to ask a great favor of you.”

“Oh, anything!”

“You were visited yesterday by a lady of my house, Madame Sing, a kinswoman who has, since my wife’s death, taken a mother’s part—so far as it ever can be taken—to my daughter. Sing Kung Yah suffers a great humiliation and an intolerable loneliness——”

“I was sorry I was out——”