"In England! Well!" "I went there as a young man." "But these herbs, these medicines you have--they did not come from England, did they?" He smiled. "Some came from the hills at our back." Then, crossing to his shelves and reaching up, "This"--he touched a silk-covered package--"is from Sumbawa in the Indian Sea; and this"--his finger was upon the cork of a phial--"is from Feng-shan, Formosa; and other roots are taken in winter from the lake of Ting-ting-hu, which is then dry; and still others come from the far mountains of Chamur." "Do you know," Mrs. Barrett said tentatively, "I have always heard that Chinese doctors give horrid things for medicine--sharks' teeth, frogs' feet, lizards' tails, and--and all sorts of dreadful things." Fong Wu proffered no enlightenment. "I am glad," she went on, "that I have learned better." After a while she began again: "Doubtless there is other wonderful knowledge, besides that about doctoring, which Chinese gentlemen possess." Fong Wu gave her a swift glance. "The followers of Laou-Tsze know many things," he replied, and moved into the shadows as if to close their talk. Toward morning, when he again gave her some tea, she spoke of something that she had been turning over in her mind for hours. "You would not take money for helping me when I was hurt," she said, "and I presume you will refuse to take it for what you are doing now. But I should like you to know that Mr. Barrett and I will always, always be your friends. If"--she looked across at him, no more a part of his rude surroundings than was she--"if ever there comes a time when we could be of use to you, you have only to tell us. Please remember that." "I will remember." "I cannot help but feel," she went on, and with a sincere desire to prove her gratitude, rather than to pry out any secret of his, "that you do not belong here--that you are in more trouble than I am. For what can a man of your rank have to do in a little town like this!" He was not displeased with her. "The ancient sage," he said slowly, "mounted himself upon a black ox and disappeared into the western wilderness of Thibet. Doubtless others, too, seek seclusion for much thinking." "But you are not the hermit kind," she declared boldly. "You belong to those who stay and fight. Yet here you are, separated from your people and your people's graves--alone and sorrowful." "As for my living people, they are best without me; as for my people dead, I neither worship their dust nor propitiate devils. The wise one said, 'Why talk forever on of men who are long gone?'" "Yet----" she persisted. He left the stove and came near her. "You are a woman, but you know much. You are right. My heart is heavy for a thing I cannot do--for the shattered dreams of the men of Hukwang." He beat his palms together noiselessly, and moved to and fro on soft sandals. "Those dreams were of a young China that was to take the place of the old--but that died unborn."