AS a matter of expediency, the father told Gonji, it would be necessary to divorce Moonlight. One could not allow one’s family to be wiped out because of a matter of mere sentiment and passion. Doubtless, the young wife, who had proved a most docile and obedient daughter-in-law in every way, would see the necessity of dissolving the union.

Gonji pleaded for time, one, two, three more years. Moonlight was very young. They could afford to wait.

His father, at heart as soft toward his son as his wife was stern, surrendered, as always.

“Arrange it with your mother, then. I am going to Tokio for a week.”

It was a difficult subject to breach to his mother, and Gonji avoided it fearfully; nor did he mention the matter to his wife, whose wistful glance he had begun to avoid. Indeed, he saw less of his wife each day, for his mother was careful to keep the girl constantly employed in her service, and in the intervals of leisure Moonlight would go to the shrines or to the Kiyomidzu springs. Gonji, moreover, was making an effort to conceal somewhat of his affection for his wife from his mother in an effort to conciliate her; and he even made advances toward the older lady, waiting upon her with great thoughtfulness and seeming anxious for her constant comfort and happiness. But all his efforts met with satirical and acid remarks from his mother, and not for a moment did she change in her attitude to the young wife.

The subject, avoided as it had been by the young husband, was bound to come up at last. It was plain that it occupied the mind of Lady Saito at this time to the exclusion of all else. She broached it herself one morning at breakfast, when, besides her son and her daughter-in-law, Ohano was present, ostentatiously vying with the young wife in replenishing the older woman’s plate and cup.

“Now,” said Lady Saito, abruptly, turning over her rice bowl to signify her meal was ended, “it must be plain to both of you that things cannot continue as they are. The fate of all our ancestors is menaced. Come, Moonlight, lift up your head. Suggest some solution of the problem.”

“I will double my offerings at the shrines,” said the young creature, with quivering lips; and at the contemptuous movement of her mother-in-law, and the smile upon Ohano’s face, she added, desperately: “I will wear my knees out, if necessary. I will not leave the springs at all, till the gods have heard my prayer.”

Lady Saito tapped her finger irritably against the tobacco-bon. Ohano solicitously filled and lit the long-stemmed pipe, and refilled and relit it ere the mother of Gonji spoke again.

“Of course, it is very hard. So is everything in life—hard! We learn that as we grow older; but there are the comforting words of the philosophers. You should study well the ‘Greater Learning for Women.’ Really, my girl, you will find there is even a satisfaction in unselfishness.”

Two red spots, hectic and feverish, stole into the waxen cheeks of the young wife. Her fingers writhed mechanically. Her eyes were riveted in fascination upon the face of the one who had tormented her now for so long. Wayward, passionate, savage impulses swept over her. She felt an intense longing to strike out—just once!

Something was touching her hand. Her fingers closed spasmodically about Gonji’s. A sob rose stranglingly in her throat, but she held herself stiffly erect. Death, she felt, would be preferable, rather than that they should see how she was suffering.

The mother-in-law’s voice droned on monotonously:

“I have been well advised in the matter. Yes, I even called in the counsel of your uncle, Ohano,” turning toward Ohano, who was affectionately waiting upon her. “When your father returns, my children, there shall be a family council. Be assured, Moonlight, that, whatever comes, you will be properly supported by the Saito family for the rest of your days, though I have no doubt at all but that you will shortly marry. With a dowry from the Saito and a pretty face—well, a pretty face often accomplishes astonishing things. See the case of our own son. It was apparent to every one he was bewitched, obsessed! He would have his way! Contemplated suppuku! Forgot his duty to his parents, his ancestors—forgot that in Japan duty is higher than love. He made great promises. Well, we listened. At the time I bade him ponder the proverb: ‘Beware of a beautiful woman. She is like red pepper!’—will burn, sting, is death to those who touch her, and—”

“Mother!”

“Is it a new custom to interrupt the head of the house?”

The young man’s voice trembled with repressed feeling, but there was a certain expression of outraged dignity in his face as he looked at his mother fairly.

“In the absence of the honorable father, the son is the legitimate head of the household,” he said.

It was the first time he had spoken thus to her. He had restrained himself during this last year, for fear of bringing down his mother’s wrath upon the defenseless head of Moonlight.

The hand that pounded the ash from her pipe trembled now, and her lips had become a thin, compressed line. She started to arise, but Ohano sprang to her assistance, and she leaned against the girl as she flung back, almost snarlingly, the words at her son:

“So be it, august authority! We will await the return of thy father. He will then decide the fate of this—”

“No, mother,” he broke in, “I make humble apology. Speak your will, but pity us, your children. We desire to be filial, obedient, but it is cruel, hard!”

“Hard!” cried his mother, savagely. “Is it harder than for a mother to see her only son enmeshed in the web of a vile Spider?”

Moonlight had sprung up sharply now. Her eyes were like wells of fire as, her bosom heaving, she started toward the older woman. A grim smile distorted the features of the Lady Saito Ichigo. As the girl advanced toward her, with that unconsciously threatening motion, this old woman of patrician ancestry neither moved nor retreated a space. In her cold, sneering gaze one read the disdain of the woman of caste who sees one whom she deems beneath her betray her lowly origin.

“Moonlight!” She felt herself caught by the shoulders in a grip that almost pained. She caught but a glimpse of his face. It was livid. Feeling that he, too, was deserting her, she uttered a loud cry, and covering her face with her sleeve, she fled from the room.

And all that night she lay weeping and trembling in the arms of her husband. In vain he besought her not to abandon herself to such wild and terrible grief. Moonlight was very, very sure, she told him, that all the gods of the heavens and the seas had deserted her forever and forever. She dreamed of an abyss into which she was pushed and which closed inexorably about her, and from which not even the loving arms of the Lord Saito Gonji could rescue her.