"Chou Hu-wei," mused the doctor, reading the card; he turned abruptly to Ronald. "There is witchcraft in this," he said, "this is the very same family you were seeking. I expect it's the old t'ai-t'ai herself—didn't you say it was she that the sister of your young friend was attached to? Yes, she must be the one. These January winds snuff out old lives. Ah, dear me, Paoling is not a place to grow old in."
It was the old t'ai-t'ai, the doctor found, and little chance of life he gave her. He read her case at the first glance and knew that the winds had done their work.
"Pneumonia—just what I feared," he said to himself.
The urgency of the case, the need of clearing out curious hangers-on and of getting ventilation to relieve the fumes of charcoal braziers so fully busied him that it was an hour before he could pause to notice the help he had been given by a foreign girl in Chinese clothes. The patient was as comfortable as she could be, lying sleepless but fully conscious, like one determined to die with her mind ruling to the last, not in the craven manner to let death sneak upon her when she was senseless. Nancy stood by her side, but with the same rigid control over her nerves.
"I expected to find you here," said the doctor. "Only to-day a visitor has come from Peking, a Mr. Nasmith—ah, you know him, I see; he is your brother's guardian. He came especially to find out whether you were well."
"What does he say?" asked the t'ai-t'ai, letting no movement escape her vigilant eyes, even in her pain, so that Nancy's start at Ronald's name gave her the hint that something weighty had been said.
"He says that the man whom my father first chose for my husband has come to Paoling," answered Nancy.
"Ah, it is fate," exclaimed the t'ai-t'ai. "I know now my time is finished. I will die. You must not wait for me, child. You must go back to him."
At these words Nancy's endurance crumpled.
"No, no, no," she cried, "you must not die! What can I do if you die? I don't want to go back. I want to stay with you. Don't let her die," she begged the doctor, forgetting, so excited she was, to speak English.