"I cannot say yes, Ronald," she announced in unthinkably clear tones, "and I cannot say no. I don't know what to say. You called this a pilgrimage. Then I am a pilgrim and I shall get my answer as the pilgrims do."
She stood up, pushed back her stool with a clatter which brought the listening monk to the door.
"Get me some incense," she commanded.
One by one she took out the frail sticks from the packet he brought, and round the temple she went, lighting a stick before each god and thrusting it deep into the ashes of the porcelain burner before she did obeisance with clasped hands held stiff in front of her. The eighteen Lo-han she worshiped, Kuan-yin and the gods of the four mountains, at the back, and then returned to the main hall to kneel prostrate before the three lotus-throned Buddhas. Ronald looked on with amazement and dismay at the outrageously incongruous picture of this foreign girl in Western clothes performing an act so unnatural to her appearance. The sight did violence to his imagination, this vision of Nancy with knees pressed upon a dirty prayer-mat of straw, the lace edges of her skirts draggled in the mire, her hair tumbling over her shoulders as she bowed before these pitiless, imperturbable gods. Yet he was too much fascinated by the weirdness of the scene to think of intervening.
The priest had been surprised, too; he had recognized the girl at the first sound of her vigorous Chinese speech. This time Nancy had the upper hand; she gave her commands quickly and clearly so that he was only too prompt to obey. He stood by the bell while she chanted her appeal to the gods, a strange petition that they should tell her whether she ought to obey or disobey her father. Three times she bowed, three times he struck deep full-toned reverberations from his bell. With the last note Nancy seized a round bamboo box from the table in front of her; she shook it and threw the bamboo counters to the floor. The gods must tell her which was right, to go back to her father or not to go back, to yield to the scarlet chair and to Chou Ming-te for her husband or to remain and marry Ronald.
The bamboo counters fell with curved sides uppermost. "No," the gods told her, "you are not to go back."
But the girl could not break her trust even for the gods.
"This is an evil place," she said, turning calmly to Ronald. "I know now that I cannot do what you wish. I must go back as I promised."
Ronald followed her dumbly through the dripping trees. Inwardly he cursed the superstition that could pin a great choice upon the chance fall of two bamboo counters. He was too bitter to speak, bitter over this childish, futile end to their pilgrimage. He was almost ready to despise Nancy.
He never guessed that the gods had been on his side—that the girl had thrown over their advice, thrown over his, thrown over her own.