Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/387

 consequences could not be ignored, it was resolved to have recourse to stratagem. So the altar was prepared, and naught remained but to draw the bright death across the victim's throat.

In the short time which intervened, the news was broken to Tai-yii in an exceptionally cruel manner. She heard by accident in conversation with a slave-girl in the garden that Pao-yii was to marry Pao-ch'ai. The poor girl felt as if a thunderbolt had pierced her brain. Her whole frame quivered beneath the shock. She turned to go back to her room, but half unconsciously followed the path that led to Pao-yii's apartments. Hardly noticing the servants in attendance, she almost forced her way in, and stood in the presence of her cousin. He was sitting down, and he looked up and laughed a foolish laugh when he saw her enter ; but he did not rise, and he did not invite her to be seated. Tai-yii sat down without being asked, and without a word spoken on either side. And the two sat there, and stared and leered at each other, until they both broke out into wild delirious laughter, the senseless crazy laughter of the madhouse. "What makes you ill, cousin ? " asked Tai-yii, when the first burst of their dreadful merriment had subsided. " I am in love with Tai-yii," he replied ; and then they both went off into louder screams of laughter than before.

At this point the slave-girls thought it high time to interfere, and, after much more laughing and nodding of heads, Tai-yii was persuaded to go away. She set off to run back to her own room, and sped along with a newly acquired strength. But just as she was nearing the door, she was seen to fall, and the terrified slave-girl who rushed to pick her up found her with her mouth full of blood.

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