"It is quite necessary to persuade your mother to send me back to my home, that I may change places with my sister. Everything will be discovered if we delay." "You wish to go? But what will become of me alone?" "I have already thought of that. Alas. Alas! But we are both betrothed to another. What can we do?" "If you do not want me living, I must die so that my soul may follow you." And she sobbed and sobbed. He dried her eyes saying to her: "Do not meet trouble in this way, but leave me to find a plan." They clasped each other in their arms, shedding most bitter tears. Now it must be said that the wife of Liu was a little wearied of seeing her daughter night and day inseparable from her sister-in-law. However, she said nothing, because the marriage was not actually accomplished. But passing before the marriage pavilion on that day, she heard a sobbing. She drew near noiselessly and, through a hole in the window paper, saw them close in each other's arms and weeping. "This is very odd," she said. She wished to make an outcry, but remembered that her son was just getting better, and would fall ill again from any sorrow. She gently tried to push the door open, but it was locked. She called out: "It is strange that this door should be locked!" The lovers recognized her voice, and made haste to dry their tears and open the door. She came in. "Why do you lock yourselves in during full daylight, and groan and embrace each other?" They felt the blood flow to their faces, and answered nothing. The mother's hands and feet were trembling with rage. She seized hold of her daughter: "You are playing some pretty trick. Let me talk to you a little." And she dragged her into an empty room. The attendants who saw her asked each other why the girl was being dragged along like that. But by this time the mother had locked the door. When the attendants came and looked through the holes in the paper, they saw her lifting a stick, and heard her crying: "O wretch, tell me the truth, or I shall strike you! Why were you weeping?" At first Prudence thought of denial. Then she said to herself that it would be better to confess and to beg her parents to break off her betrothal with the family of P'ei, so that they might marry her to Yu-lang. If they refused, she would die. That was all. So she told the whole matter without evasion. "We are husband and wife. Our love is boundless, and our vows will endure for at least a hundred years. My brother is recovered, and we fear that we shall be separated. Yu-lang wishes to return to his parents, to send his sister in his place. It seemed, then, to your daughter that a woman cannot have two husbands, and that if Yu-lang cannot marry me, I must die." As she listened to her, her mother's breast opened with rage, and she stamped her feet: "This rotten carrion has sent his son here and has deceived me. And now my daughter is lost. I must beat him unmercifully!"