"He is vile, a demon, a mocking cruel demon! Long, long years
ago I would have killed him, but always I was afraid. I tell you
everything, everything. This is how he comes to be dead. The
little one"--again her voice changed and a note of almost
grotesque tenderness came into it--"the lotus-flower, that is his
own daughter's child, flesh of his flesh, he keeps a prisoner as
the women of China are kept, up there"--she raised one fat finger
aloft--"up above. He does not know that someone comes to see
her--someone who used to come to smoke but who gave it up because
he had looked into the dear one's eye. He does not know that she
goes with me to see her man. Ah! we think he does not know!
I--I arrange it all. A week ago they were married. Tuesday
night, when Kwen Lung die, I plan for her to steal away for ever,
for ever."
Tears now were running down the woman's fat cheeks, and her voice
quivered emotionally.
"For me it is the end, but for her it is the beginning of life.
All right! I don't matter a damn! She is young and beautiful.
Ah, God! so beautiful! A drunken pig comes here and finds his
way in, so I give him the smoke and presently he sleeps, but it
makes delay, and I don't know how soon Kwen Lung, that yellow
demon, will wake.
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