Night in Japan, when the day has been all or partly clear, is a deepening mystery, a revelation of purple tones and velvet shadows. In the French Legation garden (designed originally for the delight of a feudal daimyo and afterward given as part of the French concession for official buildings) the soft blurred dusk concealed all but the vaguest suggestions of copse and path and hillock. A wanderer on the dew-drenched gravel might perceive about him, as by instinct, the beauty of line and mass. The smell of daphne and azalea flowers rose with pungent sweetness. Higher trees and mounds, set with rolling shrubs, rose against the sky-line and the stars like great crouching earth-clouds.

Pierre moved up and down the driveway just below the steps that led down from a balcony on the quiet west side of the house. Ignoring the doctor's orders, he had come a full hour before the appointed time. Ronsard, seeing his intention, had expostulated vehemently, using both language and gesticulation, but soon shrugged off the obligation with the reviving thought, "Only an hour more, and it will be over!"

So Pierre had walked at will. He drew in heavy breaths of the scented, humid air. He believed himself impervious now to further illness. He would not have listened or believed if one had told him that his present interlude of fictitious strength was like the shade of a upas-tree in a scorching desert. One cigarette after another was smoked and thrown at random among the shrubs, where each in turn lay like a malicious glow-worm, hissing and winking away an acrid spite. In the west a faint shining stirred the advent of the moon.

At ten minutes to eight o'clock Mr. Todd arrived. He was ushered at once, by order, into the small drawing-room where Ronsard sat. His face had new lines of struggle, and was very pale, but self-possession was evident in every gesture. His first act on reaching Ronsard was to draw out the paper, saying, "This, sir, has not left my body, or been touched by any hand but mine, or been referred to by any speech, since the moment, a few hours since, when I left you."

In his long, earnest explanation to Gwendolen and Dodge, Todd had, indeed, carefully refrained from letting them know that he was personal guardian of the document. It might have opened for them another blind trail of argument. During that agonizing interview he had thanked fate a hundred times for the part that Dodge had so opportunely been qualified to play. The clear judgment, intense sympathy, and clever resourcefulness of the young diplomat delighted him even in the midst of tragic exercise. It had taken the utmost skill of both men to overpower Gwendolen's first keen desire to go to her friend, to make the girl see that interference on her part had become impossible. He had left her half-fainting, though still insistent in her belief that God could not allow such a crime!

Ronsard rose as the guest entered. He, too, had gained a certain fatalistic calm. In reply to Todd's elaborate explanation, he had said simply, "Return the paper to its place, your Excellency. The farce will soon be over. Shall we not join our young imbecile in the garden?"

They paced together wide dimly lighted rooms, and emerged upon the uncovered western balcony. Pierre looked up and, wordless, continued his rapid, nervous strides.

"He'll kill himself, the fool," muttered Todd. "The mist piles in like thin cotton."

"It is too late even for his death to be of assistance," said Ronsard, with bitter animosity. His small eyes darted loathing after his young compatriot. He thrust pudgy hands deep into pockets below the equator of his belt, and rocked to and fro on his heels. Suddenly the pent-up discomfort, the apprehension, the strain of the situation clutched him anew. "God!" he cried aloud, and shook himself until the fat trembled. "As you say, Monsieur, no man is worth all this, nor woman either, least of all that puling hind yonder! Only a great cause is worth it,—the service for one's native land. I have tried to think of France—of France only. My country is to be cheated. I can do nothing; yet still I wallow in this tepid slime! How has it come about? You will give HaganÈ the paper, if he brings the woman with him!" He broke off, and after a keen look into Todd's unresponsive face began to walk in short, broken steps up and down the stone flooring.

His words had rung out clearly. Pierre must have heard each one; but if so, he made no sign. Pierre had now but one thing to think of,—his price, the woman that would soon be here.

Todd leaned against a corner pedestal, and Ronsard, after a moment, paused in his meaningless exercise, and stood again before his colleague. The two pairs of eyes met and fenced. Todd might have been made of wood. After a long glance Ronsard freed his right hand from its pocket and began pulling at the moist, red underlip. "You will of course, in any case, give up the paper at first appearance of HaganÈ and Madame?" His voice slid querulously upward with interrogation in the pause.

"Yes," said Todd, distinctly. "I conceive it to be my part to return the paper at that moment."

"Er—had we not better pause to see whether Madame tends to prove after all—recalcitrant?"

"The bargain said nothing of that. Pierre gets his price,—the person of Yuki, so they always worded it; HaganÈ gets the paper. It is simple enough. We don't need a lightning-calculator."

"Hark!" said Pierre, pausing, stricken, just beneath them. "Is it not the sound of—wheels?"

All became silent, alert, intent. The faint, low crackle and clatter of a kuruma on gravel, a vehicle slowly drawn, came apparently from the far end of the garden, just under the spot where the moon rose.

From the battlements of the white house beside them, the great pale house standing upright like an opened volume in the night, a queer flutter came, swart wings went beating against the stars, and a crow laughed aloud with raucous joy.

"A crow at night! It means, among these people, death!" said Ronsard.

Pierre started violently, and dropped his last cigarette. "Damn the flying fiend!" he cursed aloud.

The crunching of wheels drew near. They moved with increasing sluggishness. Each click had a sound of protest. To Pierre's tortured hearing, all noises crawled backward.

By this the moon was in the tops of enoki, camphor, and tall camellia trees. Where its light touched curves of shelled and smoothly gravelled paths, the spaces were of snow.

Out from the great red pagoda of Shiba temple, not half a mile away, came the first stir, the throb, the murmur of a great bell struck tentatively by its swinging cedar beam, before receiving in full strength the initial stroke of eight. "One!" the great bronze pendant boomed. "Two!" came more slowly and on a higher note, sending swifter ripples to overtake the first scurrying elves of sound. "Three!" "Four!" It swung majestically until the last stroke, piling echoes deep, filled the whole shell of night with discontent, and sank, a dew of sound, on listening leaves.

With the first tone, the jinrikisha wheels had stopped. The great crow, shaken from his height, had fled. Pursued far off by melodious echoes, he flapped his wings and screamed. A cricket near the steps awoke, jarred from his winter sleep by vibrant summons. The needle of his shrill, incongruous song pierced to the listeners' hearts.

"Mother of God!" cried Pierre, smiting his clammy forehead, "how is it that I live at all?"

Around a curved hillock directly bordering a path, straight into unhindered light, came the white hat and stooping shoulders of a coolie. Behind him dragged the dark bulk of a covered vehicle. Pierre half fainted against the steps. "She has come alone—alone—" he cried in exultation. Regaining his feet he wheeled to the two men watching from the balcony. "Gentlemen," he cried with a gesture, "may I entreat you to leave,—for these first moments?"

The coolie came on like a heavy machine.

Ronsard, at Pierre's question, transferred his weight from one foot to the other, and then looked at Todd. The latter deliberately walked down the shallow steps and stood on the gravel beside Pierre. The white hat of the coolie fronted them like a silver shield. Pierre scowled upon the American, and gave a sound of anger.

"I'm sorry," said Todd, calmly. "But I promised to be present during just these first moments. Prince HaganÈ has my word."

"Prince HaganÈ!" echoed Pierre, with a hoarse laugh that was kin to the crow's. "Where is Prince HaganÈ? Backed out at the last, as I thought he would—like the coward and bully that he is! There has no HaganÈ come, don't you see? Only Yuki—my darling—my poor little love. I see her white dress yonder!"

The coolie straightened himself, flung the wide hat sideways with a single fierce sweep of arm, and turned to the wondering observers the set, livid face and burning eyes of HaganÈ.

"Prince HaganÈ is here," he said quietly, and tried to smile.

His peasant hat, skimming along the gravel, touched now and again with a hissing sound the surface of small stones. At length in a small patch of moonlight it came to rest, and lay rocking slightly, and gaping upward like a mendicant's bowl.

Pierre cowered. Ronsard nearly fell. "Prince HaganÈ in coolie's garb! What new horror is this?"

"Suppose we call it—delicacy," suggested HaganÈ. "Could any secrecy be too great for such a meeting?"

Todd narrowed his lids. HaganÈ kept a hand close upon one shaft of the little vehicle, conserving the upright posture. The black hood, bent far over to the front, completely concealed the occupant; but the dazzling white of a gown with pale embroideries, and the faint odor of flowers and of sandalwood now stealing upon the night air, should, in any case, have betrayed her sex.

"Yuki—Yuki, you have really come!" cried Pierre, and would have rushed to her but for the obstruction of HaganÈ's arm.

"First, the paper," said HaganÈ.

Todd jerked out the document. Ronsard held him.

"Wait; there is something damnable in that still white thing there in the rickshaw. Wait and see whether it is really Madame la Princesse, or a substitute."

HaganÈ stared one moment upon the speaker with lips that writhed backward, showing teeth like a baited boar. "His Excellency is always prudent. See, gentlemen, for yourselves, that I have brought my wife. Mr. Todd, have the document ready!"

With an almost imperceptible motion HaganÈ slipped from its nail the black, taut twine that held the lowered hood. It rattled back with the noise of the spokes of a giant fan. Yuki sat upright,—the full moon just behind her,—smiling. The little hands were clasped tightly in her lap. The coils of her orchid hair had the glint and sheen of the crow's wing.

"It is Yuki,—certainement!" screamed Pierre, in ecstasy.

"Hold back that paper!" roared Ronsard.

Todd stood on tiptoe. One long thin arm went up like the derrick of a dredging-machine. His hand held something square and white with a black blotch on it. The arm lowered. HaganÈ reached up, took the paper, and thrust it deep into the breast of his coolie robe.

"The paper—" groaned Ronsard; "it is gone forever!"

"But Yuki," cried Pierre, "has come to be mine forever!"

"One moment, gentlemen," said HaganÈ, again restraining Pierre. "You were all present at the agreement between Monsieur Le Beau and me. The paper is now regained, and here is its price; here is Onda Yuki-ko." He placed the shafts of the little vehicle on the lowest stair, and stepped out sheer upon the walk. Pierre, like an animal released, sprang to Yuki, knelt by her, caught her hands, and began whispering words of love.

Now for the first time Todd groaned aloud, and walked to a little distance. Ronsard followed him. But the Japanese stood immovable, his eyes on Yuki's face.

"My beloved, my beloved,—I know now that I have not believed in this ecstasy! But you are here! Come, dear one, you must be chilled in the night air. How quiet you are and pale! It must be the moonlight. And your little hands are cold! Why do you not speak, love! Are you trying to frighten me? This is not the time for dainty trickery! Speak, for God's sake! I have been so long on the rack my very soul is sore! Why do you smile so, and never change? Your cheek is colder than your hands.—O God, a thought is coming that will turn me, too, into ice! Yuki, Yuki, what strange thing is this rooted in your heart,—what grim hilt with twisted dragons? I see the crest of the HaganÈ clan! Yuki—Yuki—"

"She wishes the dagger not removed, Monsieur. It keeps her sacrificial robes—immaculate." HaganÈ spoke like a machine.

Pierre, the other side of Yuki, rose to his feet. His eyeballs swelled and rolled in the moonlight, giving him a look of frenzy. "Who is that that speaks to me? Has night a voice? What spirit hides behind that mask?"

"Death," said HaganÈ, calmly.

Pierre writhed beside the vehicle, and then became very still. The other listeners turned, expecting an outburst of maniacal grief,—perhaps a murderous assault on HaganÈ. Pierre's composure was more terrible than any speech. He smoothed one of Yuki's hands, and, after a pause, began speaking directly to her.

"So this has been his plan, dear? I might have guessed. He knew he was to kill you. Oh, the deed suited him! He called me a thief; but what has he not stolen? Wait for me somewhere, darling,—I cannot say just where it will be; but after—I will meet you. If sickness does not free me, I myself will loose this tortured soul and find you."

"She died by her own hand. That dagger was already in her heart as you, with the stolen paper, left my room."

"Oh, he is trying to hide,—to shield himself behind you, poor little one!" said Pierre to the dead woman.

A shadow on the nearest hillock moved. Todd went nearer to examine it, but could see no living thing.

"Time presses," said HaganÈ, speaking always in the same dull, hopeless way. "Our bargain was clearly stated. Shall I now leave with you the body, Monsieur Le Beau, or shall I retrace my steps as I came, giving honorable burial to the Princess HaganÈ?"

"Le Beau, you cannot hesitate at such a question," cried Todd.

"Pierre, Pierre, in the name of France, compromise us no further! You have done harm enough. Let the poor sacrifice go in peace!"

Pierre caught Yuki to him, his arm about her shoulder, her glossy hair, with the white flowers, strained against his heart. Like a trapped beast he defied them all.

"No, I'll not give her up. You are all false,—all have betrayed me. If I am to have nothing else, I keep at least the frail shell of what she was! Oh, I shall kiss—kiss—kiss—her into life, or myself into her cold, white death. Yes, go, you toad of Hell!" he screamed toward HaganÈ. "Leave my price with me."

"Though dead, she still has reputation—family honor," HaganÈ said.

Pierre threw back his head for a derisive laugh. Just then a strange thing happened. From the hillock nearby a crouching shrub seemed to detach itself and spring. It was a man,—the old samurai Onda. HaganÈ had told him to be there. Before interposition could be made, he had thrown himself on Pierre, taken Yuki from his arms, thrown her back in the kuruma, and stood in an attitude of menace between them. "Keep your hands from my daughter! Keep your devil's hands from the Princess HaganÈ!"

"Shall we interfere?" whispered Todd to HaganÈ.

"No, I can do all," he said. Then to Onda, "Keep back, old friend. It is his right,—the price that we have paid."

"Master, Master," cried the kerai, almost sobbing in his excitement, "let me slay him—let me slay all three! I will die the self-death, or be hanged, with equal satisfaction. Only let me slay!"

"These others are just men, and my friends," said HaganÈ gravely. "The young madman yonder is protected by my word. We must think, too, of Nippon."

Old Onda's breathing rasped the silence.

"Monsieur Le Beau," said HaganÈ again, "you are fully determined to retain the body—and give her name to public defamation?"

"What else is there for me, devil?"

"That you have been her lover,—that you have so deeply injured me,—is that not enough to gloat over?"

For an instant Pierre stared. The meaning of the words came to him with a relish. HaganÈ really believed this thing; then of course he suffered! Very good! A look of malignant triumph grew in Pierre's face. HaganÈ drank the bitterness with his eyes. Here, at last, thought Pierre, was the undipped heel, the pervious crown. Yuki's body sagged an inch. Pierre stooped to it. Again she was in his arms, and he devoured, with despairing looks, the small, dead face.

HaganÈ, by a fierce gesture, commanded Onda to be still. Todd felt his heart stop, then rise slowly to his throat, and Ronsard, shivering, gripped the American's arm. The moon sailed full into a cloudless sky. Beneath it the great tragedy lay bare.

The trend of Pierre's thoughts at this moment he could never afterward recall. His flesh felt as though it melted from him. His brain stirred and pulled at possibilities before unfelt. Voices not of earth said strange things which he almost understood. Yuki's dead smile changed. He saw her lips quiver. Her white face grew to one still prayer. Something like a cooling fluid went into his hot and empty veins. He felt strong again and noble. He regarded Yuki's accuser with a new look.

"You lie in saying that thing, HaganÈ. Is it not enough that you have used, and then slain her, that you now traduce her name? No, you dare not resent my words, coward, liar, slanderer! What is the theft of a paper compared to this? For Yuki's sake, I tell you that no flower hidden in green leaves, no girl-child at its mother's breast, no flake of snow, new-fallen, is purer than this woman. Yes, grin now and tremble!"

He went swiftly to the stricken man, and dealt him a blow upon the lips.

With gasps of horror the others rushed in. HaganÈ caught Pierre to his side, and fought off the frenzied Onda. "Back, all of you, stand off, I say!" he thundered. "The man gives me life. Let him strike. Yes, yes," he cried to Pierre, all the hauteur and the terrible bronze composure melted in this new fierce joy; "tear my eyes from their sockets, my tongue from its base,—only repeat that she is pure! How could I know? She let me think it,—your boasts, the broken hairpin! Did she not give you the pledge of the hairpin?"

"I took it myself," said Pierre, "and would not give it back, though she pleaded. How could I guess the gross sentiment that is attached to the silly business by such minds as yours? She was pure, I say; give me her body and let me go!"

HaganÈ followed him to the kuruma. He stretched out both hands, now as one entreating mercy. "Poor boy, bound with me on the wheel of fate, listen just a little, if you can command your strength. She shielded you. Then, with her life, she rebought the paper. When you had offered to give it back, if I would consent to the restitution of her wifehood, I asked her if she was worthy to return, and in her conscious innocence, she gave the answer, 'No.' She thought only of the unworthiness of weakness—she whose soul, diluted into eternity, might stock a Christian heaven. In her self-death, she deliberately let me believe her evil, that her atonement might have this added bitterness. Also she may have feared that, being undeceived, I might falter in my promise not to restrain her from expiation. She knew of my love, and we have pledged ourselves to reunion and joint service after death. You cannot understand these things, Monsieur."

"No!" said Pierre, in bewilderment, putting his hand to his forehead, "I cannot understand, of course; she was always saying that. I cannot understand, but something whispers—"

"Monsieur," cried HaganÈ, "I am an older, graver man. I have suffered as I think you cannot suffer. Give me back the boon of her body!"

Pierre blinked and wavered in the path. These sudden shifting currents of purpose dazed him. The strain was tightening again, and he felt the premonitory breath of fever. He grasped outward into the air. He looked at Yuki, as if for the first time, and moved dumb lips.

"You believed this of your wife, yet forgave—helped—loved her—You look forward to having her as your wife in a coming re-birth?" asked Todd, wondering.

"Had it been true, it was but sin of the flesh. By death and expiation, she would have cleansed it. The soul would have risen, free."

"Mon Dieu, what people!" gasped Ronsard. "There stands the man Onda, scowling at us all,—and not even resenting, from HaganÈ, his only daughter's death."

"Onda will sacrifice to the Gods in gratitude when he knows the whole," said HaganÈ.

Pierre was trying to speak. He vacillated, soul and body, between the dead woman and her husband. "Do not refuse me," murmured HaganÈ, stepping nearer.

Pierre did not shrink. Instead, he, too, went near, as if fascinated. He cleared his throat, pushed back the damp hair from his girlish forehead, and smiled up at the dark, eager face. "HaganÈ is a great man," he said, tapping the other's arm. "Oh, he is a terrible man! I can refuse him nothing. Yuki says that the Gods of this land speak with him. I believe it. One is standing just behind him now; that is a terrible God, too. He looks like HaganÈ. He sits like a white flint in a ball of fire. On his arms are the coils of rope that bind the passions; in his right hand is the wheel of fate. No, I will not refuse. Old God must have flowers on his altar. Take white flower, old War God. There she is,—my love—my darling. If only she would not smile!"

HaganÈ caught the boy as he fell, transferring the burden quickly to Ronsard's outstretched arms. He gazed then anew at the face of his wife.

"Yuki," he said, as if to her listening spirit, "you are soul of my soul through ten thousand lives. I let you die. It was karma. A flower! A flower! Alas, that a flower should be stung by immortality!"

"Get her away, your Highness, before we call the servants and a doctor for Le Beau," whispered Todd, after an agonizing interval. HaganÈ rose from his knees.

"Yes, little Yuki must go with me," he muttered; "I will take her at once, your Excellency." He went toward the coolie hat and stooped. Onda was before him.

"It is not seemly, Lord, for you to bear so foul a burden. I will wear the hat, and I pray you take these shoes of mine, giving me the straw sandals."

HaganÈ obeyed passively, his eyes fixed always on Yuki's moonlit face. Now and again he felt in the bosom of his robe for the paper.

"Loosen the robe from your girdle, Master," pleaded the kerai.

HaganÈ did so, releasing the caught-up ends. The long, dark garment, though of cotton, restored to him the height and dignity of his usual presence.

"Shall I draw the hood of the kuruma?" asked Onda.

"Yes, cover her face,—her small white face; the very night may weep and falter at that smile."

Onda tucked up his robe, put on the wide hat and the straw sandals, placed himself between the shafts, and started along the driveway.

HaganÈ, moving always slowly, abstractedly, folded his arms, bowed his head, and followed in the attitude of a mourner immediately behind the covered vehicle.

"Take my burden for a moment," pleaded Ronsard, when the sound of wheels had quite died away. "I can support—no longer. Let me summon aid. Mon Dieu! this night has made of me an old man."

"It has made of me a prophet," said Todd, "for I have met Immortals face to face."