The sharp sense of imminence which had come to Barbara with Austen Ware's gift remained with her that evening. The dinner was none too merry. For the first time Patricia had failed to be enthused over the Nikko matsuri, and the bishop, since Haru's disappearance, had lacked his usual sallies. Barbara had told him nothing of her visit to the house in the Street-of-the-Misty-Valley; to speak of it would probe her own wound too deeply.

The after-dinner piazza exhaled the bouquet of evening cigars and the chatter of tourists. Far below, across the gorge, lights twinkled in native doorways and shoji glimmered like oblong yellow lanterns. The air was heavy with balsam odors, and beneath the trees, sparkling now with incandescents, tiny black moths had replaced the sunlight flashing dragon-flies. Sitting in a semicircle on straw mats the samisen players at length mingled their outrÉ, twittering cadences with the soft thunder of the water.

As the musicians finished their last number and trooped away, Patricia yawned and rose. "Here," she observed, "is where little Patsy puts her face and hands to bed. This mountain air is perfectly demoralizing!" The two girls went up-stairs together.

At her own room Patsy put her arms around the other and kissed her. "Oh, I wonder if you're sure!" she said. Then she fled inside.

Barbara threw open the window of her room and drew a low stool to the balcony. "I wonder!" she said aloud. With elbows on the railing and chin in hands, she looked long and earnestly into the dark void. Why was she no longer able to warm to all this beauty and meaning? These cryptomeria shadows, dreaming of the faded splendors of a feudal past—the streets along which legions of pilgrims had walked muttering prayers to their gods—the marvelous lacquered temples of red and gold, wrought by patient love of long dead yesterdays, in handiwork to which time had given a softened glory such as those who dreamed them never saw—the heavenly soaring of pagoda doves against the Ambassadors sky—the shrines worn with their centuries of worship and dancing and booming bells! Forgetting—and remembering no more—would that be a soul-task too hard for her? Was all that had been instinct with wonder and joy to be henceforth but emptiness and desolation—because an ideal had gone from her for ever? She thought of the belled and rosaried pilgrims climbing Nantai-Zan. She seemed to see the faint, far glimmer of their lanterns. Beyond that pilgrimage over dark crags and grim precipices lay for them the sunrise of hope!

In the room behind her hung one of the famous prints of Hiroshige, the great Japanese master—a group of peasants crossing the long skeleton bridge of Enoshima. She thought of this now, and suddenly all the spot had meant to her welled over her. She saw again the enchanted Island—the long shaded stairways of gray stone, the brown-legged girls gathering seaweed, and beyond the old seawall the gulls calling to their mates. She saw the generations of lovers pass one by one before Ben-ten's altar, murmuring their hearts' desire. Daunt's arms seemed to be again around her. She felt his kisses, heard his voice as they walked under the singing trees—walked and dreamed and forgot that pain was ever born into the world.

She started. A horse was coming up the hill, his hoofs thudding softly in the loose shale. The rider dismounted at the porch. A moment later, crop in hand, he passed beneath her window. The light fell on his face. Barbara's heart bounded and then stood still, for she recognized him.

"There has never been another woman to me, Barbara!" Mocking voices seemed to shout it satirically from the emptiness, and against the dark Haru's face rose up before her.

She shivered. She went in and closed the window, drawing down the blind with a nervous haste.

But she could not shut out that face, and in spite of herself her thoughts had their will with her. What was Daunt doing there? Patsy had said that he was in Chuzenji. But that was only a handful of miles away. He looked worn and older—he had been suffering, too! She hugged this knowledge to her heart. He knew, of course, why she had ended it all—Haru would have told him!

She clenched her hands and began to pace up and down the room, now stopping to peer with bright miserable eyes into the mirror, now throwing herself into a chair. Once she put her hand into her bosom, groping for her father's picture—to withdraw it with an added pang. For she had forgotten; she had lost the locket the afternoon of her drive with Patricia.

A knock came at the door, and a bell-boy handed her a penciled note.

She read it wonderingly, then, hastily smoothing her hair, went quickly along the hall to the sitting-room.

In the dimly lighted room a figure came toward her from the shadow. It was Philip Ware.