It may be that Jack Bigelow first awoke to the fact that for months he had been literally living in a dream-world when he saw his old college-chum, Taro Burton—the same dear, old, grave Taro! He rushed up to him in the old boyish fashion, wringing his hands with unaffected delight.

The past dream-months rolled for the moment from his memory, and Jack was once again the happy up-to-date American boy.

Taro had been delayed in America, he now told the other frankly, on account of the failure of his people to send him passage money until about a month ago. He had a few hardships to recount and some messages to deliver from mutual friends, and then he wanted to know all about Jack. Why had he failed to visit his people as promised? How much of the country had he seen? Why were his letters so few and far between?

Jack Bigelow laughed shortly. “Burton, old man,” he said, “I’ve been dead to everything in Japan—in the world, in fact—save one entrancing subject.”

“Yes?” The other was curious. “And that is—?”

“My wife.”

“Your wife!” Taro stopped short. They were crossing the main street of Tokyo on foot.

“Yes,” said the other, laughing boyishly, all his resentment against the girl lost and forgiven for the time being.

“And so you did it, after all?” said the other, with slow, bitter emphasis. His friend, then, was little different from other foreigners who marry only to desert.

“Did what?”

“Got a wife.”

“Got a wife! Why, man, she came to me. She’s a witch, the sun-goddess herself. She’s had me under her spell all these months. She has hypnotized me.”

“And still has you under her spell?”

“I am wider awake to-day,” said Jack, soberly.

“And soon,” said Taro, “you will be still wider awake, and then—then it will be time for her to awaken.”

“No!” said Jack, sharply, with bitter memory. “She has no heart whatever. She likes to pretend—that is all.”

“How do you mean?”

“Simply that we’ve both been pretending and acting—I to myself, she to me; she trying to make me believe it was all real to her, at any rate these last two months; I trying to delude myself into believing in her, which was more than my conceit was good for, after all. Just when I was sure of her, I accidentally discovered that she was preparing to desert me altogether.”

“She apparently has more sense than some of them,” said Taro. “Her head rules her heart.”

“Oh, entirely,” Jack agreed, quickly, thinking of the money she had coaxed from him in the past.

“And you,” Taro turned on him, “have you come out all right?”

“Perfectly!” the other laughed with forced assurance and airiness that deceived Taro, who was somewhat credulous by nature. “It wasn’t for a lifetime, you know,” he added.

His reply was distasteful to the high moral sense of Taro Burton—more, it pained him, for it brought to him a sudden and deep disappointment in his friend. He changed the subject, and tried to talk about his own people. He was in a great hurry to go home, and would linger but a day in Tokyo. He had arrived sooner than they expected him. He was hungry for a sight of his little sister and mother—they were all he had in the world.

Jack’s spirits were dampened for the moment, as he had expected his friend to remain with him for a few days. However, he got Taro’s consent to accompany him to his home for dinner that evening, in order to meet the “Sun-goddess.”

Taro was ushered with great ceremony into the quaint zashishi, which was supposed to be entirely Japanese, and was in reality wholly American, despite the screens and mats and vases. Jack ran up-stairs to prepare his wife to meet his friend.

The girl was panically dressing in her best clothes. The maid had brushed her hair till it glistened. Long ago her husband had peremptorily forbidden her the use of oil for the purpose of darkening or smoothing it, so it now shone a rich bronze black and curled entrancingly around her little ears and neck. She needed no color for her lips or cheeks; this also her husband had forbidden her to use. She looked like the picture of the sun-goddess in some old fairy print, her eyes dancing and shining with excitement, her cheeks very red and rosy. She was irresistible, thought her husband, as he held her at arm’s length. Then, to her great mortification and chagrin, he lifted her bodily in his arms and carried her downstairs. And thus they entered the room, the girl blushing and struggling in his arms.

Taro Burton was standing tall and erect, his back to the light. He was very grave, in spite of his friend’s mirth, and, as Jack set the girl on the floor, he took a step forward to meet her, bowing ceremoniously in Japanese fashion.

Yuki stood up, straightened her crumpled gown, and hung her head a moment.

“Yuki, this is my friend, Mr. Burton.”

She raised her head with a quick, terrified start, and then instantaneously hers and Taro’s eyes met, and each recoiled and shrank backward, their eyes matching each other in the intense startled look of horror.

The man’s face had taken on the color of death, and he was standing, immovable and silent, almost as if he were an image of stone. The girl sank to the floor in a confused heap, shivering and sobbing.

Jack turned from her to Taro, and then back again to the crouching girl. She was creeping on her knees towards Taro, but the man, having found the power of movement, went backward away from her, aged all in a moment.

He tried to turn his sick eyes from her, but they clung, fascinated as is the needle by the pole.

And then Jack’s voice, hoarse with a fear he could not understand, broke in:

“Burton, what is the matter?”

Suddenly the girl sprang to her feet and rushed to Taro, sobbing and entreating in Japanese, but the terrible figure of the man remained immovable. Jack pulled her forcibly from him.

“Burton, dear old friend, what is it?”

The other pushed his hands from him with almost a blow.

“She is my sister! Oh, my God!”

Jack Bigelow felt for an instant as if the life within him had been stopped. Then he grasped at a chair and sank down dazed.

As though to break up the terrible silence, the girl commenced to laugh, but her laughter was terrible, almost unearthly. The man in the chair covered his face with his hands; the other made a movement towards her as if he would strike her. But she did not retreat: nay, she leaned towards him. And her laughter, loud and discordant, sank low, and then faded in a tremulous sob.

She put out her little speaking, beseeching hands, and “Sayonara!” she whispered softly. Then there was stillness in the room, though the echoes seemed to repeat “Sayonara,” “Sayonara,” and again “Sayonara,” and that means not merely “Farewell,” but the heart’s resignation: “If it must be.”

Jack and Taro were alone together, neither breaking by a word the tragic sadness of that terrible silence. It was the coming into the room of the maid that recalled them to life. Twilight was settling. She brought the lighted andon and set it in the darkening room.

Jack got up slowly. The stupor and horror of it all were not gone from him, but he crossed to the other man, and looked into his dull, ashen face.

“My God! Burton, forgive me,” he said, brokenly; “I am a gentleman. I will fix it all right. She is my wife, and all the world to me. We can remarry if you wish, and I swear to protect her with all the love and homage I would give to any woman who became my wife.”

“Yes, you must do that,” said the other, with weak half-comprehension. “But where is she?”

“Where is she?” Jack repeated, dazedly. They had forgotten her departure. A dread of her possible loss possessed and stupefied Jack, and Taro was half delirious.

“We must look for her at once,” said Jack.

They called to her, and all over the house and through the grounds they searched for her, their lanterns scanning the dark shadows under the trees in the little garden; but only the autumn winds, sighing in the pine-trees, echoed her singing minor notes, and mocked and numbed their senses.

“She must have gone home,” said the husband.

“We must go there at once,” said the brother.

“It will be all right, Burton, dear old friend. Trust me; you know me well enough for that.”

Taro paused, and turned on him burning eyes, in which friendliness had been replaced by a look that spoke of stern and awful judgment. “Otherwise,” he began, but paused; he went on in a cold hard voice, “I was going to say, I will kill you.”