[Illustration: Chapter II headpiece] CHAPTER II Inside the house Megan sat down by the fireplace, in which a fire was being built and lighted by the coolie. In leaving the street she had turned her back on China; the house she was in was on the wrong side of the barbed-wire barricade and in Chinese territory, but it might have been a house in Brighton, as English as it was possible to make it. There was a cottage piano in one corner, loaded with photographs in standing frames; a plum-colored carpet covered the floor and on the walls hung pictures, evidently belonging to a series and representing dogs of different breeds sitting on cushions, taking tea, and wearing lace caps and top-hats. The tea table was being set near the fire by the number one boy for the Jacksons, who had said they would be back about five o'clock. It was the Jacksons who met Megan on her arrival at Shanghai that morning. The ship anchored down the Whangpoo, and before she could step aboard the launch that was to take the passengers up to the jetty she was accosted on deck by a small, shabby man with a soft apologetic voice and a very drooping mustache who told her he was Mr. Jackson, of the China Inland Mission, sent to meet her. Megan turned so pale that the little man caught at her arm to steady her. "But Bob," she stammered, "has anything happened to him?" "No, no," cried Mr. Jackson hastily, "he is well, he is quite well." And all the time the launch was chugging up the river he continued to reassure her as to Bob's safety, for he was terribly afraid of emotional women, that is, when they were of European race; the outcries of a recently widowed Chinese he was capable of taking with calm. He explained to her that Bob had been unable to leave Changsha, and that while he was not exactly in actual danger, still there was a great deal of fighting around Changsha and at various points along the river, so that he might even be delayed for weeks. "But can't I get up to him?" asked Megan. "After all, I've come all this way to marry him." "Well," said Mr. Jackson soothingly, "well, as a matter of actual fact you cannot. I've tried to get a permit for your passage from the authorities, but they aren't permitting any women and children to travel on the river now. We want you to stay here with us, and when Bob does come we'll have the wedding in Shanghai. Mrs. Jackson and I were forced to leave our station a month ago, and we've taken the house of some friends who are in England on leave. You'll be quite comfortable with us, and it will give you a little time to adjust yourself to the conditions here. I see Mrs. Jackson now, standing on the jetty. See, the one with the green umbrella. She will be mighty glad to have you with us. She has lived for so long where there are very few white ladies."