“My patient is a good deal exhausted,” he said.  “There are no dangerous symptoms at present, but—­”

“I will promise not to distress him,” Prince Shan interrupted.  “I am myself somewhat pressed for time, and it is probable that your patient will insist upon speaking to me in private.”

The doctor followed the nurse from the room.  Prince Shan stood looking down upon the figure of quondam associate.  There was a leaven of mild wonder in his clear eyes, a faintly contemptuous smile about the corners of his lips.

“So you are afraid of death, my friend,” he observed, “afraid of the death you planned so skilfully for me.”

“It is a lie!” Immelan declared excitedly.  “Sen Lu was never killed by my orders.  Listen!  You have nothing against me.  My death can do you no good.  It is you who have been at fault.  You—­Prince Shan—­the great diplomatist of the world—­are gambling away your future and the future of a mighty empire for a woman’s sake.  You have treated me badly enough.  Spare my life.  Call in the doctor here and tell him what to do.  He can find nothing in my system.  He is helpless.”

The smile upon the Prince’s lips became vaguer, his expression more bland and indeterminate.

“My dear Immelan,” he murmured, “you are without doubt delirious.  Compose yourself, I beg.”

A light that was almost tragic shone in the man’s face.  He sat up with a sudden access of strength.

“For the love of God, don’t torture me!” he groaned.  “The pains grow worse, hour by hour.  If I die, the whole world shall know by whose hand.”

The expression on Prince Shan’s face remained unchanged.  In his eyes, however, there was a little glint of something which seemed almost like foreknowledge,

“When you die,” he pronounced calmly, “it will be by your own hand—­not mine.”

For some reason or other, Immelan accepted these measured words of prophecy as a total reprieve.  The relief in his face was almost piteous.  He seized his visitor’s hand and would have fawned upon it.  Prince Shan withdrew himself a little farther from the bed.

“Immelan,” he said, “during my stay in England I have studied you and your methods, I have listened to all you have had to say and to propose, I have weighed the advantages and the disadvantages of the scheme you have outlined to me, and I only arrived at my decision after the most serious and unbiassed reflection.  Your scheme itself was bold and almost splendid, but, as you yourself well know at the back of your mind, it would lay the seeds of a world tumult.  I have studied history, Immelan, perhaps a little more deeply than you, and I do not believe in conquests.  For the restoration to China of such lands as belong geographically and rightly to the Chinese Empire, I have my own plans.  You, it seems to me, would make a cat’s-paw of all Asia to gratify your hatred of England.”

“A cat’s-paw!” Immelan gasped.  “Australia, New Zealand and India for Japan, new lands for her teeming population; Thibet for you, all Manchuria, and the control of the Siberian Railway!”