Nothing was said of the occurrences which had brought the illness about, and Priscilla remembered nothing of them apparently, for she asked for no one and seemed happy and content to be left with her Chinese ama. When she[Pg 32] had recovered strength enough to be carried into the court-yard it was with joyful expectancy that Adams went to greet her, yet his heart sank with sorrow when he saw the marks of the great suffering in her face and a terrible desire for revenge seized him, which became the dominant passion of his life. [Pg 32] The saddest part of this tale may be given in a few words. Priscilla Harvey never regained her reason, though she found pleasure in all the beauties of nature and her life was happy during the two years before her death. Dom Pedro went to Hong Kong and soon disappeared. Robert Adams remained in Macao taking charge of the d'Amaral foreign business. He was the daily companion of the unfortunate Priscilla in all her walks and it was but a year after her death, when I visited my uncle Robert in Macao, when the tragic event occurred which is narrated at the beginning of this history. My uncle is near my own age and we are more like brothers and have been together, since the death of Dom Pedro at Camoen's Grotto. The Courts of Macao exonerated Adams and though the good Dom d'Amaral would willingly have had him remain in the house at Macao it was not pleasant to think, that, even justified as he was, he had killed the only son of his host. It was early in the morning when we left the[Pg 33] drowsy city; the sun had just touched the windows of Sam Januarius, and as the river boat dropped into the stream, the church of Our Lady of Guia received its morning salutation. The period had come to this story of love and loss, and the book closed. [Pg 33] Perhaps it is just as well not to work, or play, or read except in "the library of the grasshoppers" as do my own good, sleeping friends in Macao. [Pg 34] [Pg 34] My Sapphire Ring. [Pg 35]
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