Two days later she again came forth from her hiding-place. He had been aware of her hovering nearness all through the morning, but made no effort to induce her to come to him. One may entrap a wild bird; one cannot make it sing. He knew the course he was taking with her was right; he was exuberantly, boyishly happy at its evident success.

Shyly, trustingly, of her own free will, again she had come to him. On the sensitive questioning face there was scarcely a trace of the wild, impish defiance that had seemed on that first day its only expression. She even smiled tentatively, pleadingly, as though she sought in this wise to win his approval. He spoke to her quietly, as though her presence there were but natural:

“Won’t you be seated?” he said.

She hesitated a moment, sat a moment, rose to her knees uncertainly, and gradually subsided to the mat. Her face was down-drooped, the little white hands folded meekly in her lap.

“You are not Japanese,” said the Tojin-san, gently. It was a simple, clear statement. If she understood anything of his language, it would be plain to her what he meant. A marvellous flush spread over her eager little face. The humid, misty eyes were clear as blue-bells now. A sound like an excited sob, half laugh, escaped her.

“Nipponese?” she said. “No—me? I am—To-o-jin-san!”

Her hands went out to him in a sudden impulsive motion. She moved on her knees nearer to him.

“Ah,” she cried, “speag those words of my father! Thas—beautiful!”

He was deeply moved, and took the little hands closely in his own. They were soft and small, clinging and confiding as a child’s. How they trembled and fluttered at first; then rested still, as if with a joyous new confidence.

He could not bear to look at her beseeching face. In all the days of her life he knew he was the first she had not held at bay. She knew mankind only as creatures of prey. Was this the mocking sprite of the mountains, who even when entangled in the ropes of the hunter had fought so desperately, so savagely? What could he say to her, what words of assurance that would penetrate her full understanding? As he pondered the matter, he saw the startled change that swept suddenly across her face. The hands in his own grew tense, rigid, clung to his own in a passionate frenzy of fear.

“You are afraid of something? What is it?”

The old hunted, listening look was upon her face again. She was shivering, trembling violently. Her voice came in a whispering gasp:

“I hear—those sound!” she said, her head uplifted.

Only a lazy breeze was stirring, and moving the wind-bells to and fro. Suddenly he saw the silhouetted shadow on the shoji wall. It moved silently, cautiously. Then the screens were slid soundlessly open, and the student Junzo appeared. For a moment he remained staring down upon them, his young face becoming gray and stern.

“Sensei! Then it is true!” he burst out, and the look of despair on his face deepened.

The Tojin-san arose to his full gigantic height. His hand fell like a heavy weight upon the shoulder of the youth. His voice was rough, commanding.

“Look at this child, Takemoto Junzo. What is there you see in her to fear—to hate?”

“Ah, you, beloved sensei,” cried the boy passionately, “are bewitched, enchanted. Do I not see with my honorable eyes the change that has befallen you? It is spoken of all over Fukui that you are in the toils of this siren. I could not longer bear it, and, against my honorable parent’s stern command, I came here to see for myself. Alas, it is too true! You are bewitched, obsessed!”

The Tojin-san curbed his temper. His voice, though stern, was calm, as though he sought to humor the boy.

“What is the change you observe in me then?”

“Your eyes are weak and soft like the dove’s. There is a melting, tender look unfit for man upon your face. Your voice is gentle, like unto a woman’s. It is as if—as if—the enamored weakness of a love possessed you!”

“A love!” repeated the Tojin-san, as though the very word were new to him. Suddenly a look of anguish came into his face, giving it a poignant, withering expression.

The fox-woman had crept softly across the room. Now she leaned upon the farthest shoji, her head lifted in a dreaming trance.

“Leave this accursed place with me to-day,” urged the boy entreatingly. “My honorable father will gladly receive you as our honored guest. Throw off the burden of this foul witch of the mountains. She can only soil your excellency, and Fukui is prepared to mete out to her at last her proper fate.”

“I am a white man,” said the Tojin-san slowly, in a deadly voice, and never had his student seen such an expression upon his face before. “As such I protect, not abandon, the women of my race. It will not be well for Fukui if harm comes to either me, your guest and teacher, or to her, whom I choose to befriend.”

“Sayonara, then, excellent sensei,” said the boy brokenly, “I have done my best.”

As he pushed back the doors, the fox-woman glided soundlessly across his path. The boy found himself looking directly into that shining face that had distracted all who had gazed upon it. Breathing heavily, almost as if he sobbed, he drew backward from her, his young face drawn and shaken. She spoke not at all, though she touched him with a timid, questioning hand. Something in the expression of the upturned face, in the tears that stood like dew in the wide, sightless eyes, aroused a new strangling emotion in the Japanese youth—reached at last his innermost sense of chivalry. He threw up his arm, with a sudden motion almost as of defense. Then, without a word or look backward, he jumped into the garden below, and fled along its paths.