“Why did you do this thing, Nita?” he asked.

“My lord knows,” she answered simply.  “I did it to bring evil upon this English woman whom he has preferred.  I did it that he might understand.  It was my lord himself who told me that she was a spy.  Now it is proved.”

Prince Shan’s fingers stole into the pocket of his coat.  He held out a crumpled sheet of paper, on which was written a single sentence.  The girl began to shiver.

“You have been very anxious indeed, Nita,” he said, “to bring evil upon this woman.  This is the message you sent to Immelan.  Do you recognise your words?  Listen, these are your words: 

“’The greatest of all will desert you, if the Englishwoman whom he loves is not speedily removed.  Even to-night he may give papers into her hand, and your secret will be known.’”

The girl sat transfixed.  She seemed to have lost all power of speech.

“That is a copy of the message which you sent to Immelan,” he told her sternly.

“It is the terrible Li Wen,” she faltered.  “He has the second sight.  The devil walks with him.”

“The devil is sometimes a useful confederate,” her companion continued equably.  “You warned Immelan that it was in my mind to refuse his terms and to open my heart to the Englishwoman, and you seduced Sen Lu to carry your message.  Yet your judgment was at fault.  The hand of Immelan was stretched out against me, and me alone.  But for my knowledge of these things, I might have sat in the place of Sen Lu, who rightly died in my stead.  What have you to say?”

She rose to her feet.  He made no movement, but his eyes watched her, and the muscles of his body stiffened.  He watched the white hand which stole irresolutely towards the loose folds of her coat.

“You ask me why I have done this,” she cried, “but you already know.  It is because you have taken this woman with the blue eyes into your heart.”

“If that were true,” he answered, “of what concern is it to others?  I am Prince Shan.”

“You sent me here to breathe this cursed western atmosphere,” she moaned, “to drink in their thoughts and see with their eyes.  I see and know the folly of it all, but who can escape?  Jealousy with us is a disease.  Over there one creeps away like a hurt animal because there is nothing else.  Here it is different.  The Frenchwoman, the Englishwoman, who loses her lover—­she does not fold her hands.  She strikes, she is a wronged creature.  I too have felt that.”

Her master sat for long in silence.

“You are right,” he pronounced.  “I shall try to be just.  You are a person of small understanding.  You have never made any effort to live with your head in the clouds.  Let that be so.  The fault was mine.”

“I do not wish to live,” she cried.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Live or die—­what does it matter?” he answered indifferently.  “With life there is pain, and with death there is none, but if you choose life, remember this.  The woman with the blue eyes, as you call her, has become the star of my life.  If harm should come to her, not only you, but every one of your family and race, in whatsoever part of the world they may be, will leave this life in agony.”