Ronald was out of patience with Kuei-lien's grim humor.
"Couldn't she run away?" he suggested.
"Yes, she could run away, but they would soon follow. Where could she fly to? She has lived behind walls all her life; she doesn't know whether Peking is east, west, south, or north, and if she asked—ha, then she would be discovered. Chinese girls don't walk through the country asking their way to Peking."
Ronald was growing more and more restive under the restrictions of custom which kept him from seeing Nancy, although he knew no obstacle could stop him, were it not for the obstacles she herself would make. But he felt the need to move, to do something, no matter how useless it might be.
"I must go there," he said. "Are there any foreigners in Paoling?"
"Yes, there is a foreign doctor at the hospital. Perhaps there are others, but they cannot help you. The Chou family has nothing to do with missionaries. You would see the front gate; that is all. A beggar can see as much."
Nevertheless Ronald decided to go. Classes did not stop till January, but he found out the names of the foreigners who lived in this isolated town, got letters to them, and set out on the first of his holidays with no definite plan except that it was better to be moving than to sit at home with arms folded. The weather was bitterly cold. The miserable train depressed his spirits. But even that was luxury compared to the mule cart in which he jolted all day. The country was like a frozen desert; the cart slipped and plunged and nearly overturned in deep icy ruts. If he could get Nancy out of a land like this, Ronald vowed, never would he venture into it again.
The doctor and his wife, having been informed of his coming, were glad to welcome him. They thawed his stiff limbs before a great stove. His visit interested them the more because they had heard of a foreign woman hidden in one of the Chinese families of the town. The wife, especially, was sympathetic over every detail of Nancy's story. But neither of them could think of any way to see the girl.
"These places are barred to us," the doctor explained, "except when someone is very ill. Then, when the patient has been mauled and mishandled, plastered with dirty paper and stuck with infected needles, they call us in to undo the mischief of the Chinese doctors."
Just as if to give point to this remark, a servant came in with a card and a request that he come at once to attend a sick woman.