Page:Frank Owen - The Wind That Tramps the World (1929).djvu/129

 nothing. She was very pale. The color had gone from her lips. She seemed weak and ill.

There followed a period of depression that was hard to countenance. Shun Hua seldom smiled. She was fretful. She wept much. All the love which she had for Lao Tzu had been woven into the silken carpet and now the carpet had been stolen. Ping Yung had seized it, carrying off with it her love as well. It was a sad ending for a romance upon which the very sun had smiled.

Lao Tzu was very sad. He ceased writing poetry. He seldom conversed with anyone. His life was like a lamp of which the flame had been quenched. Shun Hua no longer had any love for him. Her love had been stolen. It had been absorbed by the silken rug which Ping Yung had carried away.

For hours each day Lao Tzu wandered through the crooked alleys of the town. His house was now a cold and desolate place. The real Shun Hua was gone, only a shadow remained. This was the sum of his musings. He could not have been more miserable if the sun had faded forever.

But though his gloom was great, greater was to come. One morning Shun Hua crept away from his house as he slept. She had followed the silken rug into which her love had been woven. She had followed Ping Yung. For days Lao Tzu sought for her, but in vain. Shun Hua was gone, never to return. When the grain is swept away what need has man for the husks?