During the short, uncomfortable meal Tora stood like a painted stake behind his mistress's chair. The "boy," attempting to supply the watchful efficiency his senior for once appeared to lack, kept his small eyes darting from her white face to the "dirty wax" at the edge of her plate, until Yuki thought she must deliver herself over to an attack of laughing hysterics. Tora poured and brought her wine unbidden. Again she resented his presumption, again felt a cowed sense of thanks for his solicitude.

Abandoning the table at the first possible moment, she went swiftly upstairs to her own chamber and rang for the maid. The simple morning robe of smooth silk must be changed for a more elaborate afternoon toilette. She selected a curdled gray crÊpe with tiny silver pine-leaves sprinkled through it. The under-robe was turquoise blue; her wide sash of blue-black satin brocaded in conventionalized silver pine-branches.

The transfer went on with breathless celerity, yet the hands of the mantel clock moved faster still. Ten minutes only lacked to the hour of the Rat. The sound of carriage-wheels crunching gravel rose from the drive below her. Yuki gave a restless motion of her entire body, and turned her face around to the maid, who now tied the great loop of the sash.

"Patience an instant longer, your Ladyship," smiled the maid. "Let me but girdle your illustrious person with the obi-domÈ and I shall be done."

"Here is the obi-domÈ," cried Yuki, her voice betraying her impatience. "I shall retain one clasp while you wind it around the sash." She took up from among the American toilet articles on her dresser the article desired, a flat, soft braid of silk with golden clasps. Yuki, as she had said, held one end against the front of her sash, while the maid dexterously threaded the high sash loop at the back, and brought the answering clasp to its mate. It clicked like an old-fashioned bracelet.

A servant knocked on the door. Yuki herself answered. With mingled relief and perturbation she read on the cards the names of Mrs. Todd and Miss Todd. It was an unfortunate time for their visit, yet now as always the thought of Gwendolen's presence brought a little stir of excitement, a sweet glow of true happiness. During her flight downstairs Yuki formed the clearest resolution that had come to her in the distracting day. She would tell Gwendolen of Pierre's presence. If help were possible, Gwendolen would find a way. The new hope brought a little glow to the face which greeted her American friends. A little talk on unimportant, pleasant matters would refresh and steady her. For a moment only did the bright illusion abide. Gwendolen and her mother bore, in common, an air of hesitating excitement.

"Oh, what is wrong now?" cried Yuki to them both.

"Well, you are quick!" said Gwendolen; "have we become mere transparencies, or do your wits acquire a preternatural alertness in these big rooms? Yes, there is something wrong—not fatally so, only a menace."

"We felt it our duty, Yuki—" began Mrs. Todd, on her lowest register.

"Now, mother," Gwendolen interrupted, "you promised faithfully to let me tell Yuki in my own way. You sound as if you hooted from a cave. It isn't anything horrid, darling!" This last speech was directly to the princess. "Don't begin to fade away. It is simply that Pierre, who has been ill at the German hospital in Yokohama, escaped this morning, in delirium, and the authorities are after him."

"In delirium—raving in delirium—the poor tortured boy!" echoed Mrs. Todd's sepulchral tones.

"Oh, is that all?" breathed Yuki. Her face showed unmistakable relief. Gwendolen stared at her, incredulous.

Mrs. Todd put up her lorgnette. "All! Did I understand you to say all? Is it not enough? Have you known before to-day of his terrible illness?"

"No, indeed, I have not, dear Mrs. Todd. And by 'all' I did not mean the heartlessness, as you think. I only meant—I meant—"

"Humph!" said the matron, suspicion deepening with the sight of the young wife's confusion. "Perhaps Pierre has been here already. Has he been here, Yuki?"

Yuki looked more embarrassed than ever. She hesitated the fraction of an instant. Gwendolen's eyes sent out one hazel gleam. "No, dear Mrs. Todd," answered Yuki; "Monsieur has not set foot in this house since my first reception, many weeks ago."

"Humph!" said Mrs. Todd again, and closed her lorgnette with a disappointed snap. "Well, there's time for him yet! You had better look out, for if he is found here—" She shut her lips with a snap like the lorgnette-case. Because of avowed sympathy with Pierre, the good lady had assumed an air of displeasure with Yuki which all the new rank and wealth could not overcome. Yuki, strange to say, liked her the better for it. She hugged the memory of Mrs. Todd's cool looks as a fanatic might have hugged his haircloth shirt.

Gwendolen had turned away. She did not wish either Yuki or her mother to gain a hint of her personal thoughts. At Yuki's last statement, her quick mind had supplemented, "He has not set foot in this house. No—but the garden is wide, the steps and galleries inviting." Yuki hid some gnawing secret, of this she was sure. More carriage-wheels crunched the gravel and Yuki's heart at once.

"Ah," said Gwendolen, coolly, now beside a window, "here's the Emperor come to see you, Yuki!"

Yuki ran forward gasping. Anything might have happened on this reeling day.

"No," laughed the other. "I just teased you. But it is some magnate, I assure you. My heavens, what a swagger!"

Mrs. Todd, hastening to her daughter's side, drew the window-curtain farther. Her face glowed with satisfaction. "Prince Korin," she announced, "he is a dear man! I shall be pleased to meet him again."

"Come along, mother," said Gwendolen, a little brusquely; "he hasn't called on us."

"I sha'n't do anything of the kind," said the matron, indignantly. "Prince Korin took me in to dinner last week at the German Legation. Doubtless he will be as much pleased as I to renew the acquaintance."

"Please do not urge your mother to depart," Yuki flung back over her shoulder as she went toward the door; "I want to speak with you, Gwendolen, on some important matter." Without a qualm she delivered the wondering peer into the outstretched hands of the American lady. Drawing Gwendolen to a corner of the big room she said, in a low and agitated voice, "He—that one we spoke—he is even now asleep in this garden. It is terrible, but I could not send him off. I gave medicine; he was nearly to die of great illness. Make no sound or look of surprise; no one suspects, unless it is the butler, Tora. Perhaps you can help me. What makes all more dangerous, more terrible, is a secret meeting of state to be held here this very hour. Prince Korin is the first. You and Mrs. Todd must go before HaganÈ come, or he will feel great anger to me. Your father is to arrive. Oh, Gwendolen, do you see any way to save?"

"It is the most frightful complication I ever knew in my life," said Gwendolen, awed for once into calm. "Why, of all days, should the meeting fall on this?"

"Some terrible crisis in war. All may depend on this hour,—our very national existence."

"I knew something was up. Dad is cross as a bear, and Dodge struts like a turkey. Yuki, there is but one thing. Your husband must be told the moment he enters this house!"

"Oh, if I could do that!" cried Yuki. "No such tearing thoughts could I have felt. But he has given orders to me not to disturb his mind on anything until this meeting has passed."

"Nonsense, you must disobey of course," said the other; "unless I myself could get Pierre out of the garden." Her practical American wits worked rapidly. "I can do it I think. You must have smaller gates to these high walls."

"Yes, yes, on all other days," said Yuki. "But not just for this one day. Everything—everything—for these few hours are bolted. I think it to be karma, Gwendolen. No use to fight for me!"

"Now look here, don't go into despair so soon. You say you gave medicine. Is it a sleeping draught?"

"Yes, first the strong fever-cure; then, half-hour later, a sleeping potion. It is strong. It would keep the Japanese asleep for many hours."

"Go to your husband, Yuki. You must do it; never mind disobedience!"

"But if some strange thing that you, not being Japanese, cannot foresee should hold me back, do you think there is other chance?"

"Of course," said Gwendolen, "everything is in your favor. He will sleep until after the meeting, and then you can tell your husband. Only the risk—even a tiny risk—is so dreadful I shrink from having you take it."

"Yesterday HaganÈ said to me, 'A wise man never leaves something to chance,'—only in such way does chance surely serve him."

"You'll come through. Don't you fret, darling. The police would not dare search for him here. Ah, more statesmen!—this time in humble jinrikishas. The prime minister in a street kuruma! It is time for me to get mother away!"

Ignoring the scandalized side-looks of Prince Korin, Gwendolen stooped to her friend, folded her very closely, and whispered a low torrent of words of love, of encouragement, and of confidence that she did not altogether feel. Fate hung dark banners on the false battlements of Yuki's official home. The great square shadow, creeping now toward the east, gathered dampness. Gwendolen shivered violently as she passed under the porte-cochÈre.

"You needn't have been in such a nervous hurry, Gwendolen," said Mrs. Todd, with tart asperity. "Prince Korin and I were having a delightful chat."

A beggar, unusual sight for Tokio, crept in through the wide gates toward the fine waiting carriage. The driver leaned over, menacing the intruder with a long whip. Gwendolen stopped him. A sudden impulse made her open and invert her pretty purse. A few silver coins fell into one gloved hand. She leaned down, pressed them on the wondering supplicant, and whispered in English, "You are a Japanese. You have a soul in that foul body. Pray for my Yuki!"

Yuki welcomed the new arrivals, repeated her password, and ushered them personally into the office. She stationed herself by a window, now watching and praying that her husband might come soon, and alone. Three more kuruma rattled in,—common street kuruma. In the first two were Sir Charles and a Japanese cabinet minister; in the last, HaganÈ. The three fell into deep speech before the drawing-room could claim them. HaganÈ led them, as if by instinct, to the office-door. None seemed to perceive the little hostess, clutching at a window-curtain.

"My Lord," she faltered, coming forward swiftly to within a few feet of her husband, "may I speak—"

He turned half-recognizing eyes. "Who already have seats in the inner office?"

She named the two men. "Two more of our countrymen and Mr. Todd to come," he murmured. "That makes the number."

"Cannot I see your Highness a brief instant?" she pleaded.

Two more Japanese gentlemen entered on foot. HaganÈ conducted them to the door of the office. Yuki kept close to him.

"Lord, Lord—my husband!" she cried in desperation.

The note of appeal at last carried. "Any personal matter must wait, my child," he said, not unkindly, but with a decision that blighted hope. "I thought I instructed you as to this also."

Minister Todd arrived. He appeared both anxious and excited. In his hand he carried a leathern portfolio filled with papers. His nod toward her had absent-minded indirectness. "Oh, Yuki, it's you, is it? I suppose you have been coached. Have the rest come?"

"Yes,—in the office there, where I am to conduct you. May—may I speak a moment, Mr. Todd?"

"Is that the office?" he asked, pointing. "I tell you, little Princess Yuki-ko, big things are doing this day of our Lord. You wish to speak with me?"

HaganÈ's face appeared between the portiÈres. "Ah, it is his Excellency of America. Now are all come. This way, if you please, Mr. Todd. Remember, Yuki-ko, leave not this room until I speak with you again, and, if possible, let no guest enter."

"My husband," cried the girl, "this matter on my heart is no light thing. I must speak!" Both men turned, frowning slightly. "We cannot attend to hearts just now, my child," said HaganÈ. "You must defer your communication."

"That wasn't like Yuki at all to stop us at such a time," mused Todd, as he followed his host. "Your Excellency," he said to the broad silk-clad back before him, "are you sure that we did well to rebuff that little girl?"

"I am only sure, this hour, that our land is menaced." Salutations from the other statesmen interrupted this personal trend of talk.

They had passed into the office together. Yuki, standing alone in the centre of the big room, wan with the new rejection, watched them with a curious external interest, and dwelt in her mind upon the difference of character exhibited in the two vanishing backs. The hollow brass rings of the portiÈres hissed and clashed together. A steady arm drew the wooden panels of the door. She heard a key turn. She was alone on guard. With a gesture so common to Japanese women she put both hands up lightly to her hair, patting abstractedly the shining loops. A dizziness crept under her eyelids. The ugly walls of the room began slowly to turn on axes of silence. She felt her head droop with the strange drowsiness she had known an hour before; a low moan came from whitening lips. Staggering to a window she threw up a sash, flung the blinds apart, and, clasping her clenched hands upon the sill, knelt, and let her head rest upon them.

The inrush of the sweet spring winds, and this interval of quiet, following so closely upon a series of bewildering events, brought soon a balm of healing. Yuki had a nature essentially calm and self-contained. Emotion stirred and sometimes swept her from her feet, but it was an emotion that had no surface-play. Each quiver of her face answered but weakly some fundamental throb of being. She had not the usual girlish terror to bestow on scampering mice and dark corridors. Excitement generally steadied her. The one unruly, unclassifiable influence in her life had been Pierre,—his strange love-making, his exotic fascination.

In a little while she rose from her knees, drew a chair toward the opened window, and seated herself. Her eyes, instead of seeking the natural loveliness without, fell, in a new abandonment to thought, upon the great bouquets of Hanoverian roses woven in the foreign carpet at her feet. In the garden-bed just beneath her, bushes of daphne, of azalea and the golden yama-buki were in bloom. A bird, swinging on a spray of the weeping pink cherry just across the path, sang to inattentive ears. Bees droned incessantly. From the closed doors of the little office came a reflected murmur. Now from the blur of tone shot a sudden slap as of a hand struck upon a bare table. A voice cried in English, "Gentlemen! gentlemen!" and a chorus of voices, "Sh-h-h—." Yuki caught herself back to the terrific import of the moment. What were those great men thinking and saying behind the closed doors? And what was her small single danger to the issues they represented? She walked down the west wall of the room in the direction of the office. Two low French windows, opening, indeed, to the very floor, gave upon an uncovered balcony. She parted the glass door-frames of a window and stood still, gazing outward, this way and that, down and along curved paths where sunshine lay like yellow silk, and flying shattered waifs of blossoms made wonderful wind-blown patterns. Her eyes clung longest to a little path just skirting a great stone lantern, for this led to certain tea-rooms at the far end of the garden. Now she walked slowly all around the room, pausing at the main door which led in from the front hallway. Footsteps were advancing. Yuki opened to them.

"The noble Sir Onda has arrived,—father to your Highness," said Tora.

Yuki hesitated. "Does my mother accompany him?"

"No, your Ladyship, it is Sir Onda alone. He desires audience with my august master, but I told him I had received orders to usher all visitors directly to your presence."

"Quite right, Tora," said Yuki, trying to smile in a pleasant, unconcerned way. "Now say to my father that his Highness, Prince HaganÈ is absent, but may return in the space of two hours. I am engaged on certain duties at my Lord's command. And, Tora—"

"Yes, your Ladyship."

"See that the visitor issues well into the street on leaving, and close the iron gate."

"Yes, your Ladyship."

The man's words and his bow had been quite as respectful as usual, perhaps a little more than usual, yet Yuki could not divest herself of the impression that there lurked a threat of comprehension, of nearness. "When I have explained all to my prince, we shall, perhaps, send good Tora away to some country estate. I could not endure his presence if I knew he harbored such a belief, and equally impossible is it for me to condescend to self-defence," thought the young wife. In her morbid state of consciousness, she could almost see, as a clairvoyant, Tora creeping to the shoji of the tea-rooms, parting the panels with crafty, expectant fingers; she could hear his gasp of consternation, of not altogether displeased agitation, as he discovered the beautiful young foreigner asleep on the floor, as he gazed, grinning, upon the broken hairpin.

Since the butler's knock, and Yuki's few words with him, absolute silence had prevailed in the little office; the very door seemed holding its breath. Yuki heard the panel pushed cautiously to one side, and knew that her husband listened. She went to her former place by the window. Now the bees outside, and the buzz of human voices within, recommenced. Into the latter crept vivacious exclamation. The clink of glasses arose, and now the sharp detonation of a match; more than once a smothered laugh was heard. Yuki sat by the window in apparent calm; her agony of suspense would soon be over. Those were the sounds that come at the end of an important conference, not in the midst of it. She clenched her little hands together within gray sleeves, and faced the office-door, to be in readiness with her smile when the grave procession should emerge. Another ten minutes elapsed, and another; the garden shadows gained visibly in length. Like a little image of propriety, she sat, and, for all her preparation, a small shiver passed along her frame as the office-door at last went flying aside.

So set had been her eyes, her thoughts, upon this door, that she had not heard the sound of stealthy footsteps without or the soft brushing aside of clustered shrubs. Pierre stood, bareheaded, under the weeping cherry. The drooping branches, each set along its entire length in single pink amethysts of bloom, enclosed him as in a fountain. The lower part to his knees was hidden in waves of yama-buki. The wind, now rising, concealed with tossing sprays his trembling nook.

First the doors of the office, then the thick portiÈres had been flung aside by Prince HaganÈ. The notable company filed in, the Japanese not forgetting the slight, ceremonial bow to HaganÈ, who stood smiling to let them pass. The last to emerge was Minister Todd. He bore in his hand a paper folded and sealed. HaganÈ kept close behind him. As the rest of the company came forward, making adieux to the flushed and dignified little hostess, these two stood apart, talking in low tones. Todd now and again tapped the paper by way of emphasis.

Pierre, crouching among the sprays of yama-buki, saw and heard it all. His fever and madness were, for the moment, things that had not been. The price he would later pay for this immunity did not trouble him now. He seemed all mind and spirit and keen intelligence, with no encumbering body. Nothing was impossible. He would scarcely have been surprised had he begun to drift toward that inner room without effort, as one sometimes drifts in dreams, and to enter unperceived by any one but Yuki. There she stood, his sweetheart, his promised bride, kept from him by that great monster who towered near and kept talking to the thin American, and kept tapping a paper that bore a great seal, red like blood. It should be blood, Pierre thought, with a slight rise in his excitement,—the blood of that old toad who had cheated him of this flower. But did a toad have blood at all? Well, there was a way to find out! When the American left he would steal in, a new St. George pursuing an uglier dragon. He felt now feverishly in his pockets for a knife, a pistol. He remembered now that the pistol, a pretty toy of silver and pearl given him by a Parisian actress, had been left at the French Legation. A moment after, reason again grasped him. He smiled bitterly, calling himself a child, a fool. Nothing could be worse for France or Yuki either than the death of HaganÈ at his hands. Some other way must be found. The Japanese themselves had a saying, "If you hate a man, let him live." Yes, let the old man live. Yuki's true lover could yet win her, undrenched in any blood. That paper now,—if he could secure such a paper—HaganÈ would give any price for such a paper!

All the guests had gone but Mr. Todd. He smiled down at Yuki and said, "Well, little girl, I guess Uncle Sam has done your country a good turn."

"Madame la Princesse is not burdened by me with state secrets, your Excellency," interposed HaganÈ, with more than his wonted haste.

"I understand. I sha'n't say more," laughed the other. "What was it, Yuki, that you tried to tell us just before the meeting?"

Yuki now could afford to smile and look demure; her danger was over. The great strong rock of HaganÈ's presence was near. "The need is past now, I thank you, Mr. Todd," she said.

"Good-bye, both of you. You're looking mighty young and happy, Prince, if there are hard struggles in the nation!"

He was gone. Yuki, glancing upward to her husband, was surprised and then herself embarrassed to note signs of discomfiture on that bronze countenance. Was it possible that Todd's light words could move him? Yuki went closer still. She could not meet his eyes, but, oh, the restfulness, the relief in his splendid nearness! Her explanation rushed to her lips and hung there. After the manner of good wives, she must first show interest in what was uppermost in his thoughts, and afterward could gently incline him to her own desire.

"Is that the very wonderful paper just signed, Lord?" she asked, putting up a hand.

HaganÈ glanced at the document, then bent to his wife the look she dreaded, yet longed for. Under it she stirred and quivered. "You are a white flower," said HaganÈ. "Do you really care to know?"

"I—I—wish not to be disrespectfully inquisitive," stammered Yuki, "only, if the importance is so great, is there not danger to your august person in bearing it about?"

Again HaganÈ smiled. His young wife hung her crimsoning face. He put out an arm and caught her to him. "Is that your fear—you thing of snow and plum-blossom? Ah, Yuki—Yuki—you are my wife. When this time of stress and peril is at an end, I shall try to teach you something of a brighter hue than duty."

Pierre, high on his knees among the yama-buki, saw and heard it all.

"If there be danger, you must not bear it! The risk is terrible. Think, Lord, how our country needs you!" Her apprehension lifted her a little from self-consciousness. HaganÈ's answer was calm, steady, with a thrill in it. "Then who is to bear it, small sweet wife, if I should put it down? But, no, there must be no thought of thee and me—not yet. I belong to the land. In all haste must I take the paper to our Imperial Lord. Every moment means a danger. Ring instantly for the carriage,—I must go!"

"The single horse coupÉ is now being repaired," said Yuki, in a troubled tone, "and, more unfortunate, one of the pair of carriage-horses is ill; but I can order your kuruma with two runners."

"Unfortunate," echoed HaganÈ, in a lower tone, "yet such small annoyances beset the way of all. Ring for my stoutest kuruma, Yuki, and have three runners. They will bear me as swiftly as any horse."

"Lord," faltered Yuki, not moving from him, "you assured me that after the meeting I should have speech with you. The matter is indeed of importance, perhaps of great danger."

"Well, I will listen, child, if you can be brief. But first touch the bell and give my order."

Yuki went across the room from him. He, frowning slightly at the delay, stood as he had been standing, his back squarely to the office-door, his left shoulder toward the opened French window. Yuki, not ten yards before him, had reached the wall where the electric button was set. She raised a slim hand to it, but before she could press it, a certain flicker as of an animated shadow moving in the room behind HaganÈ drew her curious and anxious glance. The outstretched arm fell, paralyzed. She attempted to speak, to cry aloud, but her throat had turned to cork. Pierre Le Beau was creeping into the room like a thief, a cat, skirting the wall in the direction of the office-door. He caught her frozen stare of terror, and made a defiant gesture, commanding silence.

HaganÈ raised his head. The delay puzzled him. He had been examining again the crimson seal. The look on his wife's face, come with such terrific suddenness, sent something almost like fear through his heart. He thrust the paper in his breast, and turned to scan the room. Pierre was in the safe shelter of the columnar, massed portiÈre.

Yuki clawed and mowed her way through a jungle of fire toward her lord. "Master, master!" she whispered hoarsely. She could say no more, and fell prone on her knees before him, reaching upward for his grasp.

"What ails you, child? In the name of Shaka, what has hurt you?" He bent to raise her, but she grovelled, eluding his hands.

"I am ill, very ill; let us go quickly to our chamber," she managed to choke out. Now she fluttered backward, luring him, like a wounded bird, her long, gray sleeves trailing after.

"In Shaka's name!" he cried again, "I cannot understand the suddenness."

Pierre now left the portiÈre, and stole softly toward the bent back of the prince. Yuki thought him mad, with a new strength and cunning of murderous intent. She sprang up to her feet, hurling all her slight weight against HaganÈ with such force that he swerved. With a movement like light she had passed him, set her back to his, and was facing Pierre. "Here—here—kill me—not him—" she panted. "I am ready; I do not fear. See how white my breast and soft! Oh, blood will look so pretty here,—like the red seal!" She tore aside the dove-gray folds of her gown.

HaganÈ, wheeling to them, half drew the paper from his breast. The Frenchman saw, and as HaganÈ turned, lowered his head so that his face might still be hidden, reached out a hand, and, with one demon-directed dart of the nervous fingers had touched, had clutched, had wrenched away the long white screed of fate that bore a single drop of blood.

For one awful crash of time, the solid earth split beneath the statesman's feet. Pierre had gone through the low window like a breeze, and his flying track through the shrubs stirred them scarcely more. HaganÈ staggered as his mind confirmed this strange, annihilating loss. A moment more and he was again calm master of his fate. He took Yuki by a shoulder, held her from him, and scorching her eyes with the scorn of his, said steadily, "So this is what ailed you, Princess HaganÈ! Why did you give no warning? Tell me the name of the thief."

Yuki blinked and moved her head backward and forward through the air. She put up a hand to her throat of cork, and smoothed it.

"Answer me, Yuki, who was that man?"

She did not answer. Suddenly she sagged to his feet, wrapping her long gray sleeves about his ankles. "Oh, Master, do not kill him! He is a very sick person, yes! I will get the paper for you, Lord. I will get it for you, I will get it!" she chattered in English. Why, at this central crisis of her life, she should have spoken English to a Japanese was something that she never understood.

HaganÈ looked down upon her silently. He could not move for the coils around his feet. He saw clearly that she had reasons for detaining him, and his mind went naturally to the one solution. "This was a lover she protected." Yet he was calm, his grave dignity unassailable. His lips, his chin, his down-bent lids were of metal; only at the temples, veins sprang and stood like branches of dull red coral.

"I shall not ask again, Yuki; will you tell me the name of the man who has gone?"

Yuki stared up at him through flickering lids. The air snapped into little particles of jet and tinsel. Things were getting the queer look. She feared that she was going to laugh. "Was there a man, Lord?" she questioned.

"Gods!" said HaganÈ. His nostrils blew in and out, and still his voice was even and kind, "Yuki-ko, your country, the life of our Emperor, may be menaced by this theft. Can any bodily passion exonerate this ultimate crime?"

A great spasm seized the crouching woman. "Lord, have mercy on my weak heart; but I can get the paper—I alone can get it; I will buy it for you with my life!"

"Bah—your life! We do not offer carrion to the Gods. Unloose my feet,—poor soiled thing. Do not touch me!"

Yuki hid her face against his feet. Her arms coiled like steel bands.

Slowly and deliberately he knelt and untwined, as he might the tendrils of a vine he did not wish to bruise, her clinging arms, the long gray sleeves. There was no roughness in any movement except at the instant when he snapped the obi-domÈ, intending to use it to bind her wrists. She felt his intention, and waited craftily until he had almost drawn the first noose, then slipping her arms away, encircled again his patient feet, babbling, "Let me get it. He was ill; he did not know. Harm him not. I will get the paper." In her distracted thought some other self, anterior to this, seemed to be at a great distance, running side by side with Pierre, and jerking out to him through failing breath: "I hold HaganÈ back, but it cannot last very long. Do not harm him,—I will do what you wish, Pierre, I will be what you wish; already HaganÈ casts me off, but do not harm him. Quick, quick, poor mad boy, my strength fails! HaganÈ is coming—coming—"

His first failure brought no impatience to the statesman. With more elaborate care he again knotted the obi-domÈ and drew it. He succeeded now in securing the fluttering hands. His one sign of agitation was deep, heavy breathing. As he raised his head from the task, on the white balls of his eyes tiny crimson threads broke through. Yuki stared upward, dazed, into his face. "Look not on me," he said, as he prepared to rise. "Put your false face to the earth. If I thought a shiver of obedience, of loyalty were left in your cringing soul, I would command you to stay here quietly—and seek not to follow, and so make more open this disgrace. Hide your eyes, I say! Sooner would I caress a grave-worm than thee!" He pushed her down with some violence, rose, and hurried to the rear of the house. Yuki turned her face sidewise to follow him. "A kuruma," she heard him call, "and three swift runners! Ten yen each to the men if they start within the moment!"

He stood bareheaded in the sunshine, his watch opened in his hands. As if by invocation, the kuruma and the grinning coolies appeared. Yuki crawled a few inches, and strained her dry throat outward, listening for the address he was to give. No effort had been needed for hearing. His voice had the ring, the resonance of a deep bell, as he said aloud, "To the French Legation!"

Yuki, when she was sure that the whole place had fallen quiet, slowly lifted herself to a sitting posture on the foreign carpet, in the very centre of a huge bunch of vermilion cabbage roses. She gazed with intense scrutiny at one of these unearthly blossoms. It reminded her of something, a very terrible something, which had happened to her long ago. She tried to put a hand out and trace the irregular circle, but something held her hands together. She stared now at the hands, at the twisted obi-domÈ. Its golden clasps, now broken, hung down and clinked together like the toys on a lady's chatelaine. The sight recalled her to the present, and solved the suggested mystery of the harsh red rose. It was of sealing-wax the flowers had reminded her,—of a great crimson seal, of enamelled paper.

"But I kept him back quite a little while," she said aloud, and nodded in satisfaction. "Less danger will come to both because I held HaganÈ back. How could he know it was Pierre? How could he think so quickly to go to the French Legation? Will Pierre be really there? Oh, he is a terrible man, that great HaganÈ! Even the voices of the air speak to him! He called me 'carrion,' rather would he fondle a grave-worm than little Yuki! Ah, his eyes said not so this morning, no, not this morning, my great Lord HaganÈ."

She moved her hands restlessly in their bonds. "Poor little hands," she murmured. "He tried to bind you. Shall I set you free?" She put her ear down against them. "Oh, yes, indeed I can release you," she smiled as if the hands had answered. "The obi-domÈ is soft and insecurely tied. Even a great prince like HaganÈ cannot tie a knot that a woman's fingers cannot unfasten!" With a few deft turns of the wrist she loosed the cord, letting it slip to the floor.

For an instant she stared at the bright red marks on her wrists, then put both hands upward to smooth the loops of her hair. She seemed a little surprised to encounter such disarray, and began thoughtfully to coil up, foreign fashion, the blue-black hair which fell in streams along her shoulders. With a little shiver she drew her kimono together at the throat. "Why did Pierre wake so soon?" she whimpered. "He came and took something from HaganÈ. He did not understand his own crime, being so very ill. No, he could not have willingly slain Yuki, had he understood. HaganÈ said that my country, my Emperor, may be harmed through Pierre. I must get the paper back at once, at once! Why am I waiting? Oh, I must go swiftly, as they went!"

With spasmodic motions she lifted her trembling body upward. The gorgeous obi, stiff with silver pine-boughs and robbed now of the indispensable obi-domÈ, slipped down about her in coils, as of a huge wooden shaving. She grasped instinctively at the folds. Her eyes continued to search restlessly the corners of space.

"Oh, Pierre, naughty, naughty Pierre!" she went on whispering. "You promised to lie still. You gave your word to Yuki when she helped you. Now they may both need to die,—poor Pierre and little Yuki, too. They may die with the cherry-blossoms all dressed up for them to see! If only my poor head would stop moving, and I could think what I must do!"

She put one icy hand against her temple. With the other she tried to keep the falling robes from catching on her feet. Tottering and stumbling, she reached the hall-way. A frightened servant-woman knelt near the door. "Mistress, Mistress, in Amida's name, tell me what terrible thing is here!"

Yuki half closed her lids and peered forward, trying to recognize the speaker. "Oh, InÈ, is that you? Yes, a terrible thing, two terrible things! My hair has fallen and my obi slips away. Arrange me quickly, InÈ, quickly, and call a swift kuruma like Prince HaganÈ's. I must go somewhere now."

"Kashikomarimasu" (I hear and will obey), faltered the woman, but instead of advancing, crouched backward. She was afraid of the strange light in her mistress's eyes.

"Quick, I say! Did you not hear me?" cried Yuki, angrily, and clapped both hands together with a sharp sound. The obi fell, surrounding her in one great shimmering wheel. The terror in InÈ's face brought the young wife to her senses. "It really is nothing, InÈ," she said, trying hard to smile. "I had a little fall there in the drawing-room, and am dazed. Do not concern yourself or speak to the other servants. Go now at once and bring my long black adzuma-coat, another obi-domÈ and some foreign hair-pins. I have not the time to be entirely redressed. I will await your coming here."

Yuki stood at the foot of the steps. The servant sped upward. From the far end of the hall came Tora. The prearranged impassivity of his face was noticeable even to one in Yuki's excited state. "Well, Tora!" she said haughtily.

"Did you not wish me, your Ladyship?" asked the man, bowing in exaggerated deference. Yuki felt a hot wave pass along her neck and vanish against the pallor of her cheeks.

"I did not," she answered steadily. "But since you are here, I wish you to order my kuruma with two swift runners."

"Yes, your Ladyship." He did not move.

"You heard my order?"

"Your Highness," said the man, turning pale as he spoke, "I am only a servant, but I once lost by death a daughter of your age. There is something I would like to say."

Yuki bit her lip; a struggle went on within her. The dip of the scales came through InÈ, who now hurried down the stairs.

"When I return, Tora," said the young princess; "I am sure you mean to be kind and not presuming. I will speak to you when I return."

Tora shook his head as he turned away. As Yuki's kuruma rattled from the gate, he went back musingly alone toward the Cha no yu rooms.