was changed.
Always at night."

"You used a coil?" Peter was professionally interested on this point.

The girl murmured affirmatively. "She had some affliction. A San
Francisco doctor said the electric machine would cure it. And I
pretended to use it, too. But it broke down that night."

The yellow light grew stronger. Equipment of the cabin emerged: a
crock of rice and fish, a corked jug, a bundle of crude chop-sticks
bound with frayed twine, a dark mess of boiled sea-weed on a greasy
slab.

He looked down. The girl moved her head. Their eyes met.

Timid, gray ones with innocent candor searched him. Shining dark hair
rippled down either side of a pale, lovely face. She was younger than
he had expected, more beautiful than he had hoped. Her rosebud of a
mouth trembled in the overtures of a smile.

His feelings were divided between admiration for her and horror--she
had escaped so narrowly. In the realization of that moment Peter
shaped his course. His following thought was of finances.

He brought to light a handful of change. Less than one dollar,
disregarding four twenty-cent Hu-Peh pieces; hardly enough to pay off
the sampan coolie.

His charge sighed helplessly, thereby clinching his resolution. "I
haven't a penny," she said.

He explored the side-pocket of his coat, hoping against fact that he
had not changed his bill-fold to his grip. His fingers encountered an
unfamiliar object.

The struggling pantheress flashed into his mind. And the wrinkled
envelope she had drawn from her satin jacket and pressed into his hand.
Past dealings with Chinese gave him the inkling that he had been
unknowingly bribed.

A scarlet stamp, a monograph, was imposed in the upper right corner of
the pale blue oblong.

"Money--Chinese bills. Full of them!" Miss Lorimer gasped. "I saw it.
What are they for? And why did that dreadful woman----"

"Jet-t-e-e-ee!" sang the coolie, swinging the oar hard over. The
sampan grated against a landing. "Shanghai. _Ma-tou_! _H[=a]n liang
bu dung y[=a]ng che l[=a]i_!"

Peter was counting the pack. "Fifty one-thousand-dollar Bank of China
bills!"

Excited yelpings occurred on the _ma-tou_. The rickshaw coolies were
dickering for their unseen fare.

Peter tossed the sampan boy all the coins he had, and left him to
gibber over them as he lifted the girl to the jetty. She clung to his
arm, trembling, as the coolies formed a grinning, shouting circle about
th