Rumours of this were
flying round Chinatown, to which she had not been entirely deaf.
She thought of a hundred questions, a hundred silences, and grew
more and more convinced of the truth.
What did he mean to do? Before her a ghostly company uprose--the
shadows of some she had known with designs upon her father. John
Hampden's design was different. But might he not join that
mysterious company?
Now again she suddenly sprang upright, this time because of a
definite sound which had reached her ears from within the house:
a very faint, bell-like tinkling which ceased almost immediately.
She had heard it one night before, and quite recently; indeed, on
the night before she had met John Hampden. Cohen--Cohen, the
Jew, had died that night!
She sprang lightly on to the floor, found her slippers, and threw
a silk kimono over her nightrobe. She tiptoed cautiously to the
door and opened it.
It was at this very moment that old Huang Chow, asleep in his
cell-like apartment, was aroused by the tinkling of a bell set
immediately above his head. He awoke instantly, raised his hand
and stopped the bell. His expression, could anyone have been
present to see it, was a thing unpleasant to behold. Triumph was
in it, and cunning cruelty.
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