"But the t'ai-t'ai and Kuei-lien are not friends," exclaimed Nancy, taken aback by these sudden confidences. "Kuei-lien tried to prevent my engagement—"
"Till she got her price. Now they are fond as thieves. Everybody knows it. None of us is blind except your father. They keep him sick so that they can wheedle money out of him. They will screw thousands of taels out of him for your wedding—that will go to the t'ai-t'ai's family, and you'll be married in a year."
"That can't be. It's arranged that I shall not be married for four years."
"Four years, bah! Don't you think they can persuade a dying man into hastening such a happy event?"
"Surely he is not dying!" she exclaimed in great agitation.
"He is dying," affirmed the woman; "his brain is nearly dead now; his body will soon follow."
Nancy stared with immensely opened eyes as though she saw the whole terrible scene before her. She had forgotten to sit down. Her hands took a firmer grip on the chair behind which she stood.
"What shall we do?" she asked in a strangely quiet voice.
"We!" exclaimed the visitor. "We can do nothing. If the t'ai-t'ai so much as heard that I had been to see you, off she would pack me to-morrow. You have four friends, every one of us helpless. You have two bitter enemies. It is just as much your battle as ours. You can see your father; we cannot. If anyone is to do anything, it must be you."
"Yes, you are right," said Nancy, remembering her encounter with Kuei-lien in the Western Hills. "I will do something. And no one shall know you asked me."