The happy sadness of the brown autumn had faded in a yellow gleam of light. December had entered the land with a little drift of frost and snow which had surprised the country, for December is not usually a cold month in Japan. Its advent shook the little housewives into action and life. New mats of rice straw were being laid, and every nook and corner dusted with fresh bamboo brooms and dusters, for the Japanese begin to prepare a month in advance for the New Year season, and all the country seems to wake into active life and present a holiday appearance.

But the old palace, where dwelt the Burton family, kept its garment of perpetual gloom, and stood out in mocking contrast to the neighboring houses. No window was thrown open, no door turned in to air the place and give it the sunshine of the coming New Year.

Thick as the dust that had gathered about its unkept rooms, the shadow of death pervaded the place. Vast shadows, mysterious and oppressive, crept in, enshrouding it with their ghostly presence. From afar off the drone of a curfew bell was heard, its slow, mournful cadence seeming to drift into a dirge. Outside the early winds of winter were wailing a requiem, and all the spirits of the air floated about and beat against the sombre palace.

At dusk consciousness returned to the dying man, and weakly, though intelligently, he looked about him, and even smiled faintly at the wailing and moaning that crept upward from the rooms below, where the few old retainers of the household, who had been in the service of the family long before Taro had been born, and had stayed by them after their fortunes had fallen, were huddled together and loudly lamenting the approaching death of the son of the house.

Before a tiny shrine in a corner of the room was the prostrate form of the mother. Her lips were dumb, but her speaking eyes wailed out her prayer to all the gods for mercy. And at the bedside, his face in his hands, knelt Jack Bigelow. Perhaps he, too, was praying to the one and only God of his people.

“Burton,” he said, as the sick man stirred, “you have something to say to me?”

He bent over and wiped the dews that lay thick as a frost on lips and brow.

“My sister—” Taro began with painful slowness.

“My wife—” whispered the other, his voice breaking, and then, as Taro seemed unable to proceed, he put his mouth close down to his ear.

“Burton, our grief is a common one. I swear by everything I hold sacred and holy that I will never cease in my efforts to find my wife! Nothing that strength or money can do shall be spared. I will take no rest till she is found. Before God, I will right this wrong I have unconsciously done you and yours—and mine!”

Taro’s eyes, wide and bright, fixed Jack’s steadfastly. His long, thin hand stirred and quivered, and attempted to raise itself. Without a word Jack took it in his own. He had understood that mute effort to mean belief and confidence in him. And, kneeling there in the melancholy dusk, he held Taro’s hand between his own until it was stiff and cold.

Whither had the soul of the Eurasian drifted? Out and along the interminable and winding journey to the Meido of his maternal ancestors, or to give an account of itself to the great Man-God-three-in-one-Creator of his father?

The mother crept from the shrine with stealing step, her white face like a mask of death, her small, frail hands outstretched, like those of one gone blind.

A consciousness of her eerie approach thrilled Jack Bigelow. He dropped Taro’s hand and turned towards her, standing before and hiding the sight of the dead from her. In the dim shadows of the deepening twilight she looked as frail and ethereal as a wraith, for she had clothed herself in all the vestal garments of the dead.

With somewhat of the heroism of her feudal ancestors Omatsu had prepared herself to face and undertake that perilous journey into the unknown with her son. In the pitiful tangled reasoning that had wrestled in the bosom of this Japanese woman, always there had disturbed the beauty of such a sacrifice the doubt as to whether the gods would indeed receive her with this son of hers who had dedicated his soul to an alien and strange God. But she had prepared herself to risk the consequences. And now she stood there swaying and tottering in all her ghastly attire, while opposite to her stood the tall, fair-haired foreigner with the pitying gray eyes of her own dead lord.

She essayed to speak, but her voice was barely above a parched whisper.

“Anata?” (Thou). It was a gentle word, spoken as a question, as though she would ask him, “Condescend to speak your honorable desire with me?”

“Mother!” he only said—“dear mother!”

At Taro’s funeral Jack Bigelow made the acquaintance of his wife’s family. He had not imagined it possible for any one to have so many relatives. They came from all parts of the country, distant and close cousins and uncles and aunts, and even an old grandfather and grandmother, the former very decrepit and quite blind. And they all lined up in order, and wept real or artificial tears and muttered prayers for the soul of the dead boy.

A few of them were rich and important men of high rank in Japan; some of them were suave and courteous, coming merely for form’s sake and for the honor of the family; most of them were of the type of the decayed gentility of Japan—poor but proud, dignified but humble in their dignity.

They all regarded Jack with the same grave, stoical gaze peculiar to the better-class Japanese, betraying in no way by their expression surprise or resentment at his presence among them. As a matter of fact, none of the family were aware of the relation in which he stood to them, and so had occasion for no real animus against him, regarding him merely as a friend of Taro’s. But in his supersensitive condition Jack imagined that they looked upon him as an intruder, perhaps as one who had brought distress and havoc upon their household.

When, however, after the funeral the little mob of friends and relatives had gradually dispersed till there was none left besides himself and Omatsu, the intense loneliness and silence of the big house grated upon his nerves, so that he would have welcomed the wailing of the servants, which had now been buried in the grave.

Omatsu, too, who had borne herself with heroic fortitude and bravery all through the day, now that the reaction had come was shivering and trembling, and, when he approached her with a pitying exclamation, she went to him straightway and cried in his arms like a little, tired child. He comforted her with broken words, though his own tears were falling on her little, bowed head. And he tried to tell her, in terribly bad pidgin Japanese—something Yuki had taught him—how it would be his care to protect and guard her in the future just as if she were indeed his mother; that he was not worthy, but he would try to fill the place of the beautiful boy who was sleeping his last sleep. And he told of the promise he had given to Taro, how his life would be devoted to but one end and purpose, to find his wife. Would she accompany him?

She entreated him to take her with him. But in the end, after all, she could not accompany him. Her health, which had never been robust, gave way to her grief, and Jack took her back to her parents, for it was necessary that he should spare no time from his search, and, moreover, she was too delicate to travel. Before leaving her he saw to it that she and her parents should have every comfort possible.

The old palace, grim, gray, and haggard in the winter landscape, was now completely deserted. The townspeople looked askance at it, as at a haunted house, knowing somewhat of the tragedy that hid within its closed portals.

Jack was the last to leave the place. Omatsu had begged him to see to the closing up, and the paying-off of all the old servants. When he had finally come out he was shocked at the curious crowd of neighbors who had gathered about the gates and were whispering and gossiping about him and waiting for him. But they were quite respectful and silent as he passed them. He was an object of curiosity, this tall foreigner who had married among them, and they watched him with round, wondering eyes, following him all the way to the station, a little, pygmy procession, very much as children follow a circus. Once or twice he half turned as though to tell them to leave him, but stopped himself in time, remembering how strange he must really seem to them.

At the station he bowed to them gravely, and his bow was solemnly and politely returned by those in front. And it was in this strangely pathetic though grotesque manner that the tall, fair-haired barbarian left the town.

Less than a year before he had been a light-hearted, joyous boy. He was now a man, with a burden on his soul and a sacred task to perform. Moreover, there was an awful abyss in his life that must be bridged. Never again would life have for him the same rosy bow of promise, not until he had found that other part of his soul—his Sun-goddess.