"What do you mean?"
Since the servant was no longer there, she told him in a low voice what she had seen and heard. Ho Chang's anger was such that his sight was troubled. She begged him to calm himself.
"Enough! Enough!" he thundered. "This worthless daughter fouls the very air upon our threshold. We must kill them both in the night, so that none may know."
The woman's face became as the earth.
"We have already reached a ripe age, and this is the only flesh and bone we have. If you kill her, what will be left to us? As for Ya-nei, he is of a good family, he is intelligent, and well-built. Our stations are identical and our houses equal. His only fault is that he did not make a proposal, but rather forced everything in secret. Yet so the matter is. Would it not be better to send him back with a letter to Wu, requiring gifts of betrothal? We would lose all by making a scandal."
Ho Chang's rage was already half spent, and he now let himself be persuaded by degrees. He went out and asked the boatmen where they were.
"We are approaching Wu-ch'ang."
"You will anchor there."
He then called his confidential steward and, explaining all to him, gave him a letter. After this he went to see his daughter, who hid herself under the blanket when she beheld him. He spoke no word to her; but in a stern tone called out Ya-nei, who crept from his hiding-place, saluted the older man, and said:
"My crime deserves death."