Soon Kinsan’s father was attracted by the new melody of her voice, and he, too, came and stood near and listened. No word was said until after the song had been finished. Then Fujimoto came forward and bowed to Tetsutaisho. This was the first warning Kinsan had of the unusual audience her singing had attracted, and she quickly arose and bowed and made excuses for her inattention.

“I would rather you sat there and sang than to have arisen and courtesied a thousand times,” said Tetsutaisho, as he left the roadside and made his way among the lilacs to where she was standing. “One does not often have the opportunity, though the wish be constant, and the privilege of being one of such an audience!” he continued, as he leaned over and caressed first one and then another of the little children as they came huddling up. “Were it not that you deserve such happiness, Fujimoto, I might almost envy you your good fortune in being placed here amidst such loveliness. The trees, the birds, the flowers, the children—and, allow me, the daughter—among whom you dwell, must certainly inspire a rare happiness.”

The children had by this time scampered in all directions, and the three elders were left to speak or go as they liked.

“Yes, honourable sir.” said Fujimoto, touched not a little, “these are truly things not to be despised. The daughter is my comfort: all are my joy, and after all, my lot may not be a despicable one. Had I always the favour of Sumi, god of water, my task might be lighter. Still I am content, and happy so long as my Kinsan is spared to me.”

Nothing further was said about Kinsan; the one and only object of interest which the nobleman could have or cared to have in the humble gardener’s affairs. They walked along at Tetsutaisho’s suggestion toward the cottage, which stood some little distance farther on. When the big officer entered the palace enclosure he had no intention of making the gardener’s family a call. In fact, he had of late almost dismissed them from his mind; but the moment he heard Kinsan’s voice the spark within again came to life, and when he drew near and saw how modestly she sat and how neatly she was gowned and how her eyes sparkled with life and how the blood rose to her cheeks, his heart flamed more fiercely than before. Tetsutaisho pondered, then said to himself:

“It is only the father who stands in my way. If I could but get his confidence, I might then win her love. But why ask anybody’s consent? Force will get me the one thing, and—well, persistence the other. They are both at my disposal—why delay the matter?”

Kinsan did not speak as they walked, but fell into a deep study. Whether it came to her intuitively or from a change in Tetsutaisho’s mood she partially understood him, and as they approached the house and she thought of her mother a feeling of fear took hold of her and she trembled and hesitated. She knew of their straitened circumstances and of how her mother had repeatedly chided her father for not having taken advantage of Tetsutaisho’s former liberal offer. The ends of her fingers tingled, then grew cold, and the perspiration stood in great beads on her forehead. When they had arrived at the house and her mother came running out, bowing to the visitor, Kinsan’s heart sickened, and she no longer possessed that confidence in her father which had hitherto buoyed her under each successive trial.

“It is the hand of fate, and I am its certain victim,” was the thought which ran through her mind and would not go away.

When the rest entered the house she politely withdrew, unnoticed, and went away, far into the woods, and on and on until she came to the hidden cave, where every rock and all the flowers and even the stars had sung again and again of her great love and Shibusawa’s faith. She did not return, but lingered and stayed, and prayed fresh prayers; and then she thought she saw him there bending over her; she heard him speak and looked into his eyes, and felt again the power of his love. After a long time she went away, and when far from the cave and all about was darkness and she was uncertain of her way a chill came over her and she thought of the tempter’s bait and her mother’s weakness.

“Would to God that I, too, had found a way!” was her last thought as she nestled upon her wooden pillow, and at last slept a broken, restless sleep.

Late that evening Tetsutaisho left the cottage and lightly tripped along down the pathway toward his own house. As he went his steps quickened, and he almost ran with delight. He carried in his girdle a document which on the morrow he would safely file and thus insure the proper keeping of its lawful provisions. Upon his arrival he hurriedly entered the house, and that night Takara may have had, for the first time, misgivings of a weaker purpose on Tetsutaisho’s part than she herself had divined.

However that may have been, it mattered not to Tetsutaisho, for on the following day his own carriers set in front of the gardener’s cottage a beautiful lacquered chair into which there stepped a weeping, sorrowing child; a daughter whose only price was the worth of her virtue, whose only hope lay in the power of her own frail hands.

She went, and with her the rags that hung upon her back. There was not a mother’s blessing, and the father had slunk back from witnessing the fruit of a heartless wife’s bargaining. It was not the first. Others had likewise served. And the fathers and mothers had for ages eagerly and unknowingly partaken of the wages.