all her life to her was to him no more than a passing incident. One day she learned that he bad returned. downstream. The idea of following him probably never even occurred to her, for Malayan women have been robbed by circumstance of any great power of initiative; but, like others before her, she thought that the sun had fallen from heaven because her rush-light had gone out.
Her parents, who knew nothing of this intrigue, calmly set about making the arrangements for her marriage—a matter concerning which she, of course, would be the last person in the world to be consulted. She must have watched these preparations with speechless agony, knowing that the day fixed for her wedding must be that upon which her life would end; for she had resolved to die faithful to her false lover, though it was not until the very last that she summoned up sufficient courage to kill herself. That she ever brought herself to the pitch of committing suicide is very marvellous, for that act is not only opposed to all natural instincts, but is specially repugnant to the spirit of her race. The male Malay, driven to desperation, runs âmok; the Malay woman endures and submits. But this poor child of fourteen, who so early had learned the raptures and the tragedies of a great love, must have been possessed of extraordinary force of character. Secretly and in silence she resolved; fearlessly she carried her resolve into execution; and dying concealed the love affair which had wrought her undoing, and the fact of her approaching maternity. And perhaps there
