Page:Mrs. Spring Fragrance - Far - 1912.djvu/213

 entered. He rushed up to Sie and clutched her by the shoulder.

"You are mine!" he shouted. "I will kill you before you become another man's!"

"Cousin," said Koan-lo the First, "I wish not to have the woman to be my wife, but I claim her as my servant. She has already received her wages—her father's freedom."

Koan-lo the Second gazed bewilderedly into the faces of his wife and cousin. Then he threw up his hands and cried:

"Oh, Koan-lo, my cousin, I have been evil. Always have I envied you and carried bitter thoughts of you in my heart. Even your kindness to me in the past has provoked my ill-will, and when I have seen you surrounded by friends, I have said scornfully: 'He that hath wine hath many friends,' although I well knew the people loved you for your good heart. And Sie I have deceived. I took her to myself, knowing that she thought I was what I was not. I caused her to believe she was mine by all rights."

"So I am yours," broke in Sie tremblingly.

"So she shall be yours—when you are worthy of such a pearl and can guard and keep it," said Koan-lo the First. Then waving his cousin away from Sie, he continued:

"This is your punishment; the God of