have you committed acts
of which Celestial Reason disapproves?"

Yu-lang jostled thus by his father and his mother, no longer knew
where he stood. Meanwhile the nurse objected:

"But what can they say there? Our young Lord has only to keep himself
hidden for a few days, and it will all pass over."

But at Liu's house the nurse, as she went away, had unwittingly locked
the door, and Liu's wife had come to it and was shaking it violently,
stammering with rage and flourishing her stick.

"Thief, whom may Heaven strike dead! O very vile rascal! For what did
you take me? I am going to show you who I am! I will have your life!
If you do not open the door, I shall break it open with a great case."

But naturally no one answered. Prudence tried in vain to stay her
mother, who loaded her with insults; but at last, in her rage, she
succeeded in breaking the lock, and rushed into the room with her
stick uplifted. The cage was empty and the bird had flown. She knelt
on all fours to look under the bed and under the furniture, crying out
all the time:

"Thief, you shall die!"

But, as she was compelled to admit, there was no trace of the
ravisher. Then Prudence said to her, sobbing meanwhile:

"And now, after this scandal, the P'ei family is let into the whole
secret. I entreat you to have pity on me and let me marry Yu-lang.
Otherwise, must I not die in order to redeem my shame?"

She fell on her knees, weeping and groaning.

"What you say is true," answered her mother resuming some measure of
calm. "After this wonderful affair, no one will want you."

However, a mother's love cannot be altogether restrained. She drew
near to her daughter: "My poor child! All this is not your fault. It
is that rotten carrion of a Sun who has caused it. But we cannot, of
ourselves, break off the betrothal with P'ei."

As Liu came up in the meantime, the matter had to be explained to him.
He was nearly half a day without being able to speak, and it may be
surmised that his first words were to throw the blame on his wife:

"The whole fault is yours! By making me say I do not know what, you
arranged all this. Instead of altering the date as you should have
done! And to crown all, you insisted upon placing our daughter in his
arms! She has very well kept him company, has she not?"

His wife's anger was not quite dead, and these remarks rekindled it.
Her voice rolled out like thunder:

"You old tortoise!" she began....

But on this occ