Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/293

 knowledge broke his heart—a mighty Chinese heart—the great heart of the mandarin Wu Li Chang.

For a moment he stood very still, motionless but not quelled, silent, superb in his defeat. And then he fell, and moved no more.

When Florence Gregory looked about her—when she was able to—the doors were open, and the wide window opened noiselessly from without. No one had entered the room. They were quite alone, she and what had been Wu Li Chang. And there was not a sound except the love-sick ecstasy of a nightingale singing his devoted desire through the jasmine-scented garden.

Very slowly, horror-stricken, watching him till the last, she crept from the room, leaving it, by chance, through the door at which she had entered it.

She had aged in that room.