“Please!” she murmured. There were tears in her eyes. They scalded his own high-beating heart, those tears.
“You will plan it? I am helpless. But I must see you—tell you!”
He thought her head inclined again.
“You will? You'll give me a note? Oh, promise!”
“Yes,” she whispered; and slipped away into another room.
So this is why he had to come to T'ainan-fu—to tell her the tremendous news that he would one day be free! And she had promised to arrange a meeting!
Never in all his cold life had Jonathan Brachey experienced such a thrill as followed that soft “Yes.”
Not a word passed between him and Boatwright until they stood in the gate house. Then, for an instant, their eyes met. He had to fight back the burning triumph that was in his own. But the little man seemed glad to look away; he was even evasive.
“You'd better be around about half past eleven in the morning,” said he. “We'll go to the yamen from here. We must have blue carts and the extra servants. Good night.” And again he sighed.
That was all. Boatwright let him go like that, back to the dirty, dangerous native inn.