M'GOURLEY'S LOVE AFFAIR

At about three o'clock on that eventful day M'Gourley met one of Holme & Ringer's clerks in the street.

"So your partner's off for a holiday," said the clerk.

"So he tells me," replied Mac.

"He's going pretty far afield," went on the clerk; "Vancouver isn't—"

"Where did you say?" cut in M'Gourley.

"Well, he's bought two tickets for Vancouver this morning, one for his cousin and one for himself. She is married, and they are going to pick her husband up at Yokohama," he went on, smiling slightly.

"Vancouver!" said Mac. He stood for a moment in astonishment, then hailing a passing riksha he jumped into it, and told the driver to take him to the House of the Clouds.

Campanula had just returned, she was in the garden; and when she heard his step coming up the hill path she came to the gate to meet him.

She greeted him with a smile, but there was something about her that struck M'Gourley strangely.

She had a far-away look in her face, and she wore an abstracted air. Away from the world her mind seemed wandering in some far, strange country, whilst her little body walked beside him, and her lips answered his questions, and told him things.

"O Toku San is dead," said she; "I have just left her." She spoke gravely, but without any sorrow in her voice; one might even have imagined that she was referring to some good fortune that had fallen on O Toku San; and perhaps, indeed, she was.

"Ay! puir thing, is she?" said Mac, whose mind was also astray.

He asked had Leslie returned, and Campanula told him that he had gone to a garden-party at Omura, and would not return till evening.

"He is going away," finished Campanula, pausing on the veranda steps and unlatching the strap of her sandal.

"Oh! so he's told you?" said Mac.

Campanula said nothing; possibly she did not hear the question, so absorbed was she by her own ideas and thoughts. Suddenly she said, turning to Mac, who was leaning his shoulder against the veranda post and feeling in his pocket for his tobacco-pouch:

"I saw the Blind One to-day as I was leaving O Toku San's. I did not speak to him; he spoke to me. He said the master of the house on the heights is going on a journey from whence he will not return. Then he went away. A wind from the hill blew my kimono apart and a chill came to my breast. I do not know who the Blind One is—perhaps he is Death."

M'Gourley, as she spoke, noticed that she had refolded her kimono from right to left instead of from left to right.

Now in Japan, the only people who wear their kimonos folded from right to left are the dead.

He felt sick and shivery at the words she had just spoken, and he could not reply to them or ask questions; he was filled with a horror of the subject, a dead, blind terror of it. He looked down and said gruffly:

"What way is that you've folded your kimono? Just run into the house and put it right. I'll bide here on the verandy and smoke my pipe."

She vanished into the house, and Mac sat down, but he did not light his pipe. What could be the meaning of all this? Surely he was dead, and laid long ago in the green woods of Nikko—could it be possible that the dead return?

Why was it that she alone could see him, hear him, and speak to him?

His eye caught the crimson azaleas as they bloomed in their beauty and splendor, and the Nikko road rose before him, the mysterious valley, peopled by the crimson flowers, the cypress trees, the far-off country, and the distant sea hills beyond Tanagura.

He heard Leslie's voice as it denied the existence of God, and declared that if he had ever been given a creature that loved him, he would have cared for and loved it.

Then he felt something touch his shoulder, and, turning with a start, found it was Campanula.

"Come," said she, in the manner of a person who would say, "I wish to show you something."

He rose and followed her into the house. She led the way upstairs, and down the narrow passage to Leslie's room.

At the door she paused and pointed to an object on the floor. It was a portmanteau packed and strapped.

They both looked at it without saying a word: a silence, that spoke of the deep, unconscious understanding between them.

"Come," said Mac in his turn, and taking her by the hand he led her downstairs.

Had the portmanteau been a coffin, containing some being beloved by Campanula, he could not have spoken more gently, or led her away from it more tenderly.

Downstairs the old, rough, gruff M'Gourley seemed very much perturbed.

Could he have found Leslie alone at that moment, a very regrettable scene might have ensued.

And yet at the bottom of all his anger and perturbation lay a golden gleam. If Leslie went off like this, Campanula would be all his (Mac's) own.

He had no idea of marrying her, or anything of that sort; but he had an immense idea of possessing her all for himself.

He had, proposed to buy a half share in her at Nikko, and he would have made a bad bargain, for during the last five years he had possessed a full half share without paying a cent, unless we count the pounds and pounds expended on dolls, sweets, and so forth.

But this was not like having her all to himself: a creature to feed and clothe, to buy hairpins for and tabis, fans and sweets; to listen to of an evening, as her fingers strayed over the strings of a chamÈcen, or her tongue told fabulous tales of folk clad in fur or feathers.

All at once, as he paced the room, he turned to her, literally picked her up, hugged her, gave her a kiss, and said: "He'll come back to you. Dinna greet; I canna stand it. I'll be back and see you the morrow morn before he goes."

He hurried out of the house, and went raging down the hill.

To be in anger with one whom one loves works, indeed, like madness in the blood.

Mac, as he plunged down the hill, was lashing himself into a fury against Leslie. He turned into a saki shop and drank half a pint of that seemingly innocuous liquor; then he went to the office, took a whisky bottle from a cupboard, and poured himself out a liberal peg.

He was an abstemious man as a rule, but once he took the bit between his teeth nothing on God's earth except death would stop him, till the next morning's headache came.

At five he recognized that he was hopelessly embarked on a grand drunk, and determined to take a riksha over to Mogi; there complete the business, and return in time next morning to see Leslie before he started.

Just before starting from the hotel a waiter brought him out a cablegram from Shanghai, which had come round from the office. It was relative to a bank disaster that had occurred in India. He read it, stuffed it into his pocket, and ordered the Djin to proceed.