d,
against the promptings of her common sense, that he designed to return
East, there to seek a retirement amidst the familiar and the beautiful
things of the Orient which belonged to Lala's dream of heaven.

Stories about her father often reached her ears. She knew that he
had held high rank in China before she had been born; but that he had
sacrificed his rights in some way had always been her theory. She had
been too young to understand the stories which her mother had told her
sometimes; but that there were traits in the character of Huang Chow
which it was not good for his daughter to know she appreciated and
accepted as a secret sorrow.

He allowed her all the freedom to which her education entitled her. Her
life was that of a European and not of an Oriental woman. She loved him
in a way, but also feared him. She feared the dark and cruel side of his
character, of which, at various periods during their life together, she
had had terrifying glimpses.

She had decided that cruelty was his vice. In what way he gratified
it she had never learned, nor did she desire to do so. There were
periodical visits from the police, but she had learned long ago that her
father was too clever to place himself within reach of the law.

However crooked one part of his business methods might be, his dealings
with his clients were straight enough, so that no one had any object in
betraying him; and the legality or otherwise of his foreign relations
evidently afforded no case against him upon which the authorities could
act, or upon which they cared to act.

In America it had been graft which had protected him. She had learned
this accidentally, but never knew whether he bought his immunity in the
same way in London.

Some of the rumours which reached her were terrifying. Latterly she had
met many strange glances in her comings and goings about Limehouse. This
peculiar atmosphere had always preceded the break-up of every home which
they had shared. She divined the fact that in some way Huang Chow
had outstayed his welcome in Chinatown, London. Where their next
resting-place would be she could not imagine, but she prayed that it
might be in some more sunny clime.

She found herself to be thinking over much of John Hampden. His bona
fides were not above suspicion, but she could scarcely expect to meet a
really white man in such an environment.

Lala would have liked to think that he was white, but could not force
herself to do s