"But He was not man, Mah-li, He was God. And you are wrong; millions have listened to Him and His love has transfigured the lives of half the human race." "Has it?" Mah-li turned away. A shadow of disappointment crossed her face. Whatever she expected she had evidently not received. She walked slowly to the door and when she reached it, Megan took her by the shoulders and suddenly kissed her in an awkward school-girl fashion on both cheeks. She felt the blunt little cheek-bones and sniffed the perfume of Mah-li's young skin, that was strangely like the aroma of fine old parchment, but when she looked at her she saw that this intimacy brought them no closer together. After Mah-li had left she stood wondering what she could have said or done that would have proved more effective. The remembrance of Mah-li's fingers clutched about the neck of the hot-water bottle struck her to the heart. She could not rid herself of the idea that Mah-li had come to her in the hope of something quite definite that she had not received. But what more did Mah-li want? Had she looked for a confirmation, or for a new formula, or only for some comforting observance? Or had she too hoped for the miracle, and this time the miracle had not been forthcoming? [Illustration: Chapter XX headpiece] CHAPTER XX She was still standing in a rather cold and discouraged preoccupation when the orderly came with a note from the General asking her to drive with him. She decided at once that she would go, seize a favorable opening in their conversation and speak to him about Mah-li. That would obviate at least any imminent physical danger. She did not know just how far a Chinese general might be expected to go in punishing an unfaithful concubine but it did not seem unlikely to anticipate even sudden death. However, death for Mah-li did not greatly worry her. Her coldness and her discouragement had vanished at the prospect of an encounter with the General. She was elated to discover that she had now a definite issue on which to base an attack on him, an issue entirely satisfying in its human implications, the very ache and anguish of mind he would feel over Mah-li's defection making more valuable his forgiveness of her. An issue also on the grand scale, since it demanded of him an unqualified renunciation of his sterile ethic. In a word, if she could force him to accept it she would at the same time force him to accept irrevocably the very essence of the Word of God.