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 so.  She would have liked to think that he sought her company because she appealed to him personally; but she had detected the fact that another motive underlay his attentions.  She wondered if he could be another of those moths drawn by the light of that fabled wealth of her father.

It was curious, she reflected, that Huang Chow never checked—­ indeed, openly countenanced—­her friendship with the many chance acquaintances she had made, even when her own instincts told her that the men were crooked; so that, knowing the acumen of her father, she was well aware that he must know it too.

Several of these pseudo lovers of hers had died.  It was a point which often occurred to her mind, but upon which she did not care to dwell even now.  But John Hampden—­John Hampden was different.  He was not wholly sincere.  She sighed wearily.  But nevertheless he was not like some of the others.

She started up in bed, seized with a sudden dreadful idea.  He was a detective!

She understood now why she had found so much that was white in him, but so much that was false.  His presence seemed to be very near her.  Something caressing in his voice echoed in her mind.  She found herself to be listening to the muted sounds of Limehouse and of the waterway which flowed so close beside her.

That old longing for the home of her childhood returned tenfold, and tears began to trickle down her cheeks.  She was falling in love with this man whose object was her father’s ruin.  A cold terror clutched at her heart.  Even now, while their friendship was so new, so strange, there was a query, a stark, terrifying query, to stand up before her.