"What's that again to do with Hsi Jen? How came they to know anything about it?" Madame Hsing exclaimed upon learning the issue. "Who else was present?" she proceeded to inquire.
"There was Miss P'ing!" was Chin's wife's reply.
"Shouldn't you have given her a slap on the mouth?" lady Feng precipitately shouted. "As soon as I ever put my foot outside the door, she starts gadding about; and I never see so much as her shadow, when I get home. She too is bound to have had a hand in telling you something or other!"
"Miss P'ing wasn't present," Chin's wife protested. "Looking from a distance it seemed to me like her; but I couldn't see distinctly. It was a mere surmise on my part that it was she at all."
"Go and fetch her at once!" lady Feng shouted to a servant. "Tell her that I've come home, and that Madame Hsing is also here and wants her to help her in her hurry."
Feng Erh quickly came up to her. "Miss Lin," she observed, "despatched a messenger for her, and asked her in writing three and four times before she at last went. I advised her to get back so soon as your ladyship stepped inside the gate, but 'tell your mistress,' Miss Lin said, 'that I've put her to the inconvenience of coming round, as I've got something for her to do for me.'"
This explanation satisfied lady Feng and she let the matter drop. "What has she got to do," she purposely went on to ask, "that she will trouble her day after day?"
Madame Hsing was driven to her wits' ends. As soon as the meal was over, she returned home; and, in the evening, she communicated to Chia She the result of her errand. After some reflection, Chia She promptly summoned Chia Lien.
"There are other people in Nanking to look after our property," he told him on his arrival; "there's not only one family, so be quick and depute some one to go and summon Chin Ts'ai to come up to the capital."
"Last night a letter arrived from Nanking," Chia Lien rejoined, "to the effect that Chin Ts'ai had been suffering from some phlegm-obstruction in the channels of the heart. So a coffin and money were allowed from the other mansion. Whether he be dead or alive now, I don't know. But even if alive, he must have lost all consciousness. It would therefore be a fruitless errand to send for him. His wife, on the other hand, is quite deaf."