Satiety was beginning to creep over the passion I had for her, and that was still farther checked now that I knew she looked upon it more as a means to an end—­the child—­rather than enjoyed it for itself.

It worried me greatly this thought of her future and how I was going to provide for it, and it seemed sometimes as if it might be better to give in to her; perhaps without me she would be happy if she had a child as she wished, provided I could make, as I could, a good allowance to both.  But then even with a child I could not imagine Suzee would want to remain alone, and what would be the fate of a child if other lovers came, or a husband?...

While I did not think that Suzee loved me deeply, deep emotion not being within her range of powers, it was difficult to see how I could find for her an existence as pleasant as she led with me.

All these things worried me greatly, and as Fate willed it, needlessly.

How often in this life a way is suddenly opened out through circumstances where we least expect it.

The Greeks said—­“For these unknown matters a god shall find out the way.”  And often indeed it happens that Fate steps in, and in some way our wildest dreams have never pictured turns all our life to another hue suddenly before our eyes.

One night when I had been making a little head of Suzee in her prettiest mood on my canvas, she came and sat on my knee and begged me to give her, as a reward for her sitting, a narrow band of gold I always wore on my left arm above the elbow.

I refused, for Viola had given it to me and locked it on my arm.  She had the key and I, even had I wished, could only have had it taken off by means of another key or melting the gold.

At my refusal there was a storm of tears as usual, but it soon passed over on my kissing her and promising we would go to a jeweller’s on the morrow and have one something like it put on her own arm.

She soon fell asleep after peace was restored, but I lay awake for hours watching the tracery of palm shadows on the wall opposite, thrown there by the light of the square.  At midnight the lamp was put out, the room grew black, without a ray of light, and after a time I, too, fell asleep.

I was awakened by a curious sense of a presence in the room.  My eyelids flew open, my ears strained.  The room was one solid block of blackness, there was no ray of light anywhere.  I could see and hear nothing for a moment, though I was certain another living thing had entered the room.  Then at the same instant there was a violent vibration of the bed beneath me and a piercing scream from Suzee, a blind, wild cry to me for protection.

Instinctively I threw my arms out to her.  Her body was struggling, writhing.  I felt it as my hands shot out and gripped fiercely, in the thick darkness, round two hard hairy arms, tense, rigid, as they held her down.

Suzee’s voice broke out suddenly as my grip possibly loosened the pressure of those other hands upon her throat, and she was speaking in Chinese.  A hot breath came on my eyes, some face must have been close to mine in the blackness; under my arms, on Suzee’s wildly heaving body, I felt something moving, warm and slow and soft, and knew that it was blood.