"Is, then, this blow also by the hand of that malicious and vindictive person?
Oh, what a cycle of events and interchanging lines of destiny do your words disclose!" "Who, then, is Tung Fel, my revered Father ?" demanded Yang.
"It is a matter which must be made clear from the beginning," replied Ping Siang.

"At one time this person and Tung Fel were, by nature and endowments, united in the most amiable bonds of an inseparable friendship.

Presently Tung Fel signed the preliminary contract of a marriage with one who seemed to be endowed with every variety of enchanting and virtuous grace, but who was, nevertheless, as the unrolling of future events irresistibly discovered, a person of irregular character and undignified habits.

On the eve of the marriage ceremony this person was made known to her by the undoubtedly enraptured Tung Fel, whereupon he too fell into the snare of her engaging personality, and putting aside all thoughts of prudent restraint, made her more remunerative offers of marriage than Tung Fel could by any possible chance overbid.

In such a manner--for after the nature of her kind riches were exceptionally attractive to her degraded imagination--she became this person's wife, and the mother of his only son.