Nien Chi saw his plan had failed and, with rage and vowing vengeance, he took his departure and once again sought his master.
That night a slave in the home was bound and killed and taken in the early morning and placed against the gate of Mr. Kao’s house. Mr. Kao always went early to the “Hall of the Classics,” and that morning when he opened the gate the dead body fell into Kao’s court; Nien Chi and soldiers were waiting just around the corner for this moment, and immediately, before Mr. Kao had taken in the situation, they had seized him and thrown him into prison, on charge of killing one of the great Sung’s servants. He was tried and condemned to death.
The beautiful Yü Yüch Ying saw through the plan and disposed of the place at once for a small sum of money and, taking one loyal, good serving-woman, she sought her father.
Everything was done that could be done to save her husband; her father had lost much of his property and standing, and could help but little.
It seemed as though nothing could be done to save him when, at the last moment, a “great [[132]]day of forgiveness” was announced on the birth of an heir to the throne. This did not mean freedom, but instead of death came banishment for life to some other and distant province.
The news was made known to the wife by a Mr. Wang, an old-time friend of the family, and he arranged with her a plan by which she might have a parting visit with her husband; this was to be in a cemetery just out of Peking and off a little from the great road over which his cart was to go. She had not been allowed to see him in prison, though she had used every means possible.
When the day set to take him away came, she went with her woman to the place arranged, and then waited, with sad and heavy heart, for the cart which was to bring her husband for a short talk and then take him away from her forever. When Mr. Wang told Mr. Kao of the plan, he said, “She won’t come; a woman is like a garment that one can take off at pleasure and it is all the same to them.”
Little he knew the true-hearted woman, or how she would prove her fidelity, that would hand her name down to all coming wives as the pattern of all that is most truly virtuous.
When the cart reached the place, by the use of a little money Mr. Wang arranged with the [[133]]carter and escort soldiers to allow Mr. Kao to get out of the cart and have this quiet last talk with his wife.
Much to his surprise, Mr. Kao found his wife waiting for him. She came forward and, kneeling before him, she said, “We are about to separate, possibly forever; what commands have you for me? I will follow them to the letter.”