Dawn of the following day found the Prince of Owari at the palace, to make complaint against the dastardly attack of the Mito men. He returned shortly after noon, and within the hour sent word that he would come to see me in my apartments. Fujimaro, who brought the message, knew nothing as to the result of the visit to the Shogun.

The mingled dread and half-hearted hope with which I awaited the Prince may well be imagined. Was I to be sentenced to a horrible death, or merely sent out of the country? Had Yoritomo’s sacrifice won against suspicion and reaction, or were Owari and the cause of progress to go down to ruin and destruction with myself? Since I had lost my little Princess, I could think of my own fate with a degree of indifference. But that the cause for which my dear friend had given his life should fail—what bitterness!

The Prince entered with austere stateliness, only to drop from the formal to the familiar at the first view of my bandaged arm. He waved all our attendants to leave, and sank down beside me, with a look of kindly concern. “You are in pain! Your arm—did Yuki say whether the arrow had a poisoned head?”

“No, no, my lord. The wound is already healing. I feel no pain from that. The Shogun! Tell me!—Does the House of Owari still stand unshaken?”

“As firmly as Fuji-yama.”

“And the schemes of Mito?”

He smiled and stroked his slender white beard. “Rekko continues to dwell in his Inferior Yashiki. Keiki has paid a heavy price for the pierced arm of my guest. An attack with deadly weapons within the bounds of Yedo is an outrage upon the dignity of the Shogun.”

“His Highness once more inclines to your counsel?”

“The offering of him who has gone from us has not been without avail, and Keiki’s false move has forced the last bar of the gate for us. Your offence is pardoned.”

“That is small matter. Has there been an acceptance of policies memorialized by the departed?”

“Many daimios have yet to present their answers to the letters of inquiry sent out by the Shogunate. The majority may be against intercourse with the tojin peoples, yet Satsuma and Ii have joined me in urging a temporary treaty for the opening of a few ports. When all answers have been received, His Highness will command the Council of Elders to announce the acceptance of our policy.”

“Banzai!” I cried. “Let intercourse be established for a time, and even the frogs in the well will be compelled to see light.”

“The talk of a temporary treaty is a compromise to bring over those who waver between the two camps. I have talked too much with you and with him who has gone to doubt now that ports once opened will ever be closed.” He looked at me with a quizzical smile. “Once a tojin enters, it is difficult to be rid of him.”

“You say I am forgiven?”

“One way has been suggested to rid the land from the tojin. That is to make him not a tojin.”

“Not a tojin? You mean death!”

“Death to tojin kin and country. I recalled to the Shogun the precedent of the wise tojin Anjin Sama.”

“That! Can I also become a Japanese?”

“If you wed a Japanese wife.”

“Wed?—I cannot do that! You know there is only one maiden in all Japan—in all the world!”

“It is true that the maiden to whom you refer cannot be given to any other than one of exalted rank.” “And I can wed none other.”

“The heart of Iyeyoshi has been troubled. He questioned the maiden, and found that the words of the tojin were true. Yet how could the Sei-i-tai Shogun give his daughter to a tojin?”

I stared at the Prince, aflame with an ardent hope that overpowered me. “He—you say that he—Speak!”

“The heir of Owari is a fitting husband for the daughter of the Shogun. You know the arrangement regarding him who has gone from us. There now remains only the son of his elder brother. I have long since reached the age when it is customary to lay aside the burden of the title and of the clan administration. The boy is too young. In such cases it is not unusual to adopt an elder son to bear the burden of the title until such time as it is thought best for him to retire in favor of the younger heir.”

“My lord!” I gasped, “you cannot mean—?”

“Iyeyoshi’s heart is touched by the grief of his daughter. He is willing to do so much to assure her happiness. My kinsman guest has a true heart—he is to be trusted. When an heir succeeds during the lifetime of his father, he bends to the guidance of the retired daimio. There is no more to be said. The decision is now with Woroto.”

I kowtowed to him. For several moments I could not speak, for I was utterly overcome with the great joy and unable to believe that such good fortune could be mine. The serene face of Yoritomo appeared before my mental vision. It was as if he had returned to serve me as guardian spirit.

“Father of my brother!—my father!” I murmured. I could say no more.

“Woroto—my son!”

I looked up and saw his haughty eyes glistening with tears. We gazed deep into one another’s souls. My brother had gone from me, but I had found a father.

He rose and left me.

Soon, however, the screens parted to admit that sweetest and quaintest and dearest of dames, Tokiwa Sama. She glided across to kowtow to me, demurely radiant. I had found not only a father, but a mother—and such a mother! Could I but have gathered her up in my arms and poured out my heart to her!

Instead we talked with decorous restraint of various little details of home life,—matters trifling and altogether inconsequential in themselves yet charged with a world of meaning to me. I was received into the intimacy of the home life; I had become a member of the family.

Never had I chafed more at the convention that forbade all reference to romantic love. Freed from that taboo, pronounced by an over-rigid etiquette, I knew my dainty little adopted mother would have been an ideal confidante. Her dear face glowed with sympathy and love, which, being unable to express in words or caresses, she could convey to me only by looks and the exquisite courtesy of her manner.

So it was, I was accepted as the son and heir of Owari in the hearts of my second parents, before my adoption according to the forms of the law. The legal adoption was not a simple affair of routine, as I had fancied. Though proposed by the Shogun himself, it was blocked for some weeks by the intrigues of the Mito party and the opposition of the Elder Council. Unaware of the motive behind the Shogun’s supposed caprice,—a motive that made resistance futile,—our enemies worked zealously to prevent the acceptance of the barbarian as heir of one of the August Three Families.

In the end our opponents even went so far as to appeal to that mysterious superlord the Mikado. For this act custom would have justified Iyeyoshi in punishing them with utmost severity. But he was not averse to showing them that the power of the Shogun, their master, over the Kyoto court was unbroken, and so the matter was delayed for some weeks. In ordinary circumstances, the dense ignorance and bigotry of the imperial court regarding the tojin world would have insured a certain verdict against me. But the Shogun brought heavy pressure to bear. It was a difficult matter to deny the express desire of one who had the power to enforce compliance. Also I suspect that the difficulty was glossed over by a flat denial of my tojin blood and a strong insistence upon my kinship to the House of Owari.

Pending the sanction of the Mikado, I was required to remain within the bounds of the yashiki. But it was a confinement far from irksome in view of the extreme sultriness of the midsummer weather and the charm of the yashiki gardens.

Yuki, however, roved at will about the city in the disguise of a ronin, spying upon the Mito men. Soon after the funeral I had sent him to Shinagawa with a message for Kohana San. But the geisha had not been seen since my glimpse of her at Uyeno. She had not returned to her home, and was not to be found. Our first thought was that she might have killed herself for love of Yoritomo. Yet this seemed improbable when we recalled to mind his command for her to live and serve those whom he left behind.

At last, during the solemn Festival of the Dead, which was celebrated in mid August, Yuki learned that the girl was a prisoner in Hitotsubashi Yashiki. Keiki had lured her into his palace, and had either induced or forced her to become one of the many concubines allowed a high noble by custom and law. From this last, Yuki reasoned that Keiki could not possibly have discovered her devotion to our cause, else she would surely have been tortured, instead of being honored with the rank of concubine. When I expressed my surprise that her love for Yoritomo had not caused her to commit hara-kiri, Yuki was no less surprised that I had failed to grasp her motive. For love of her dead lord, she had submitted to a fate that to her was worse than death.

“With the permission of my lord,” he added, “I will continue to haunt the vicinity of Keiki’s yashiki. None is more crafty than a geisha. She will be watching for an opportunity to send us word of the schemes and intrigues of the Mito party.”