Li Ho had made luncheon, Li Ho had brought tea.  Otherwise Li Ho had left her alone.  About one thing only had he been fussy.  She must not sleep in her old room.  It was not aired.  It needed “heap scrub.”  He had arranged, he said, a little tent “all velly fine.” desire was passive.  She did not care where she slept.

When bedtime had come, Li Ho had taken her to the tent.  It was cozily hidden in the bush and, as he had promised, quite comfortable.  But she thought his manner odd.  “Are you nervous, Li Ho?” she asked with a smile.

The Chinaman blinked rapidly, disdaining reply.  But in his turn asked a question—­his first since her arrival.  Had the honorable Professor Spence received an insignificant parcel?  Desire replied vaguely that she did not know.  What was in the parcel?

“Velly implotant plasel,” said Li Ho gravely.  “Honorable husband arrive plenty click when read um insides.”

There had seemed no sense to this.  But Desire did not argue.  She did not even attend very carefully when Li Ho added certain explanations.  He had found, it appeared, some papers which had belonged to her mother and had felt it his duty to send them on.

“Where did you find them, Li Ho?”

Instead of answering this, Li Ho, after a moment’s hesitation, had produced from some recess of his old blue coat an envelope which he handled with an air of awed respect.

“Li Ho find more plasel too.  Pletty soon put um back.  Honorable Boss indulge in fit if missing.”

“Which means that it belongs to father and that you have—­borrowed it?” suggested she, delicately.

“No b’long him.  B’long you,” said Li Ho, thrusting the packet into her hand.  And, as if fearful of being questioned further, he had taken the candle and departed.

“Leave me the candle, Li Ho,” she had called to him.  But he had not returned.  And a candle is a small matter.  She was used to undressing in the dusk.  Almost at once she had fallen asleep.

Now in the morning, as she lay and watched the shadows of the leaves, she remembered that, though he had taken the candle, he had left the letter.  It lay there on the strip of old carpet beside her cot.  Desire withdrew her attention from the leaves and picked it up.  With a little thrill she saw that Li Ho had been right.  It was her own name which was written across the envelope . . .

Her own name, faded yet clear on a wrinkled envelope yellowed at the edges.  The seal of the envelope had been broken. . . .

Sometime in her childhood Desire must have seen her mother’s writing.  Conscious memory of it was gone, but in the deeper recesses of her mind there must have lingered some recognition which quickened her heart at sight of it.

A letter from the dead?  No wonder Li Ho had handled it with reverence.  With trembling fingers the girl drew it from its violated covering.