He knew that he would not turn back again. This should be his last self-indulgence, his last lingering alone with self. He was going into exile—exile self-made, self-inflicted. He would not falter in his courage, or, while they lived, fail Sên Ruby, the mother of his son. He had sown—and he would reap. He would reap a golden harvest and lay its rich, ripened sheaves at her feet—and she should never know. She could not be of his people; to his utmost he would be of hers. His inner soul, his spiritual core of being, was his own, an ownership no man could renounce. His soul was his and China’s for all time; but his heart should beat for the wife he had chosen and taken, and his daily doings should be as her country’s. He dismissed it then—and stood alone with China; a proud flush dyed his cheeks; tears filled his eyes. Sên King-lo lifted his hands and held them out with a gesture of farewell and of endless fealty and longing towards the dominion of the Sêns, the queendom of Ya Tin. He gave a greeting, and he took one. Then he turned—again—towards his tents. * * * * * When Mrs. Sên lifted the curtain of her sleeping-tent and came through it, King-lo was directing the servants who were spreading the breakfast meal. He was humming “Annie Laurie,” and he was clad in English clothes. Why had he done that so soon? she wondered. When she spoke the question later, Sên replied, “Oh, we may as well now. The country here is quiet again. I was needlessly concerned before, I’m sure, and the coolies know us better now and understand.” And that was true. He _had_ been needlessly doubtful of his coolies and the servants, whose menace had been one of social dislike and spiritual disapproval, not of physical attack. The coolies and servants were good-natured on all the return journeying. Many of them lived in Hongkong, and several of them had left their wives and children in the narrow, crowded streets of Victoria City. As soon as their morning meal was over, they pushed on—towards Hongkong and the West. Mrs. Sên would not delay the restart to change then. But when they halted again to dine, and for the night (they had not camped at noon, and lunch had been but a picnic) she laid aside silk trousers and tinseled satin coat—to her surprise a little regretfully. They were pretty, if odd, those costly Chinese garments that Lo had chosen and given her. They would make wonderful finery for Albert Hall charity gatherings or for some ducal function of masquerade, but Sên King-lo’s wife could not wear Chinese costume for “fancy dress.” Lo was giving her deft aid over a dinner frock that “did up” in twenty places, most of them beyond her reach, when she put the troubled question to him in their tent.