"I will send word to Shanghai at once," he said. "And by the way, I don't yet know your name." "My name is Megan Davis, Miss Davis. If you will send word to Mr. Jackson, of the China Inland Mission, and ask him to notify my family and friends I shall be very grateful." "Will you please spell all that?" said the General, and he wrote it down in a little note-book he carried in one pocket. When he had closed it again he said very formally, in a high strange voice, as if he were making an official proclamation: "There is at present only one female in my household. If you have no repugnance for her society she will be glad to visit you from time to time. I myself am very busy with the political situation in my province." "Of course I have no repugnance," Megan exclaimed. "She has been very kind and I think she is charming." "Then she will come again whenever you wish. She speaks English well." He took out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead and smoothed his hair before putting on his cap. His gesture was eloquent of relief from a considerable strain. He gave her a slight salute and walked over to the door. "Good morning," he said, clicking his heels together. "Good morning," said Megan. The orderly with the salmon-pink cord, who had been waiting just outside, opened the door for him and he went out. [Illustration: Chapter XIV headpiece] CHAPTER XIV Megan spent the rest of the day on the bed or sitting by the window. She felt no desire to leave her room to see what was beyond the tiled roofs, to meet half-way any new experience. The peace of the General's yamen began to act as a soporific on her nerves. The one sound that persisted, the distant ringing of the telephone and the Chinese voice, became part of the silence. Only once she heard violent noises outside, which proved to be the amah hysterically haranguing one of the servants, but seeing Megan looking at her from the window the amah smiled as if to assure her that it was nothing serious, and the quiet became even deeper than before. Late in the day they brought her some Chinese food, rice and concoctions of meat and fish, bamboo shoots, cabbage, bean sprouts and soy sauce, served in delicate bowls veined like thin flesh. Megan ate adventurously and found it represented a whole new scale of flavors, as outside her experience as the tones of a Chinese musical scale, so that her hunger remained mysteriously unsatisfied. She was lying on the bed when a knock at the door made her sit up. The orderly with the Mauser on the salmon-pink cord opened the door but instead of the General a much younger and smaller man in the uniform of an officer came into the room.