At the Rest House, Noreen ventured to inquire of a certain agent of a big British trading company if he knew any of the English or American war-correspondents who had come recently to Shanhaikwan to file their work on the uncensored cable. This man was an unlovely Englishman poisoned by China and drink.... Oh, yes, some of the men had come in from the field or from Wangcheng with big stories, but had trouble getting back to their lines, it was said. “Have you heard--or do you know--if Mr. Routledge has been here?” His face filled with an added inflammation, and he mumbled something which had to do with Routledge and the treachery in India. “Do you mean to say,” she demanded hopelessly, “that you--that Shanhaikwan has not heard that Mr. Routledge had nothing to do with the treachery in India--that another, Cardinegh of the _Witness_, confessed the crime on his death-bed?” The Englishman had not heard. He bent toward her with a quick, aroused look and wanted to know all, but she fled to her room.... It was not strange if Routledge failed to hear of his vindication, when this British agent had not.... By the open window she sat for hours staring at the Great Wall in the moonlight. She saw it climb through the white sheen which lay upon the mountains, and saw it dip into the twinkling sea, like a monster that has crawled down to drink. There were intervals when Shanhaikwan was still as the depths of the ocean. The whole landscape frightened her with its intimate reality. The thought came again that this had once been _her_ country, that she had seen the Mongol builders murdered by the lash and the toil. The purest substance of tragedy evolved in her brain. There had been something abhorrent in contact with the Englishman below. She had seen a hate for Routledge like that before--at the Army and Navy reception! And then, the sinister narrative of the white man in India, as it had been set down by the English correspondent!... Could this be “their bravest man”? Was he, too, attracting hatred and suspicion in India, as a result of the excitement into which her father’s work had thrown the English? Could not poor Rawder, barefoot, travel-bruised, and wearing a motley of native garments, be free from this world-havoc which was her heritage?... That instant in the supremacy of pain she could not feel in her heart that Routledge wanted her--or that he was in the world!... Could he be dead, or in the Leper Valley? Had his mind gone back to dust--burned out by these terrible currents of hatred?... The pictured thought drew forth a stifled scream. The lamp in her room was turned low, and the still, windless night was a pitiless oppression. Crossing the room to open the door, in agony for air, she passed the mirror and saw a dim reflection--white arms, white throat, white face. She turned the knob.