on. Hanging on
the wall was a temple censer, bronze, moulded in the shape of a
lotus blossom with stem and leaves--deadly as a club. He tore it
down just as the Wastrel rose, wavering slightly. Spurlock
advanced, the censer swung high.

The Wastrel wiped the blood from his forehead. The blow had brought
him back to the realm of sober thought. He glanced at Ruth (who had
stood with her back to the wall, pinned there throughout the
contest by terror and the knowledge of her own helplessness), then
at the bronze menace, and calculated correctly that this particular
adventure was finished.

His hesitation was visible, and Spurlock took advantage of this to
run to Ruth. He put his free arm around her and held the censer
ready; and as Ruth snuggled her cheek against his sleeve, they
were, so far as intent, in each other's arms. Without a word or a
gesture, the Wastrel turned and staggered forth, out of the orbit
of these two, having been thrust into it for a single purpose
already described.

For a while they stood there, silent, motionless, staring at the
doorway where still a few strings of the bamboo curtain swayed and
twisted, agitated by the Wastrel's passage.

"I was going to die, Hoddy!" she whispered. "You do love me?"

"God knows how much!" Suddenly he laid his head on her shoulder.
"But I'm a blackguard, too, Ruth. I had no right to marry you. I
have no right to love you."

"Why not?"

"I am a thief, a hunted man."

"So that is what separated us! Oh, Hoddy, you have wasted so many
wonderful days! Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't!" He made as though to draw away, but her arms became
hoops of steel.

"Because you did not wish to hurt me?"

"Yes. If I let you believe I did not love you, and they found me,
your shame would be negligible."

"And loving me, you fought me, avoided all my traps! I'm glad I've
been so unhappy. Remember, in your story--look at it, scattered
everywhere!--that line? _We arrive at true happiness only through
labyrinths of misery._"

"I am a thief, nevertheless."

"Oh, that!"

He raised his head, staring at her in blank astonishment. "You
mean, it doesn't matter?"

"Poor Hoddy! When you were ill in Canton, out of your head, you
babbled words. Only a few, but enough for me to understand that
some act had driven you to this part of the world, where the hunted
hide."

"And you married me, knowing?"

"I married the man who bought a sing-song girl to give her her
free