A few days later Orito returned to Tokyo. His father's house was strangely sad and gloomy. On his return home from America it had been thrown open, as if to catch every bright ray of light and happiness. Now it was darkened. Sachi no longer sat in the little garden, but he and Omi were indoors trying to pass the time playing a game which resembled checkers.
Neither of them greeted Orito otherwise than sadly, both of them letting him see in every way that he had wounded them deeply, although Omi was a trifle hopeful and often told Sachi that he had great hopes that Orito would change his mind, that something would turn up to help them. Sachi, on the other hand, was inconsolable. Moreover, he was growing quite old and feeble, and this last disappointment seemed to have stooped his shoulders and whitened his hair even more.
Orito tried to cheer them up, telling them of some clever business deal he had made in Yokohama, by which he had sold a large tract of land for a good round sum.
"NUMÈ BREAKS DOWN."
"How is Numè?" he asked.
The old man shook his head sadly.
"Quite sick," he said. "She grew very sad and lonely for a time, and about a week ago she broke down when out with her maid, and was carried to Mrs. Davis' house, where she has been ever since."
"I'll go right over and see her," Orito said, with concern.
He found Numè looking very thin and wan. She was lying on an English sofa. Koto was beside her, singing very softly as she played on her samisen. Orito paused on the threshold, listening to the last weird, thrilling notes of the beautiful song, "Sayonara" (Farewell).
"It is indeed very sad to find you sick, Numè," he said, gently, as he sat down beside her.
She smiled faintly.
"I am afraid you have kept too much in seclusion, Numè. You ought to go out more into the open air."
Still the girl smiled silently—a pitiful, trembling, patient smile.
Mrs. Davis came into the room and welcomed Orito, trying to cheer the girl up at the same time. "Now we will get better soon," she said, pinching the girl's chin—"now that Orito has come home."
"Ess," the girl answered, vaguely. "Numè will be bedder now."
Koto laid her face against the sick girl's, caressing her little head with her hand.
"Your voice is so weak, Numè-san," she said.
A look of genuine sympathy and affection passed between mistress and maid. Koto understood her, if no one else did. Koto loved her and would stand by her through thick and thin.
Orito expressed himself to Mrs. Davis as being very shocked to find Numè so weak and thin. He had not heard of her illness. How long had it been?
"Only a few days," Mrs. Davis told him. It had been very sudden. She would improve soon, now that Orito had returned.
Her persistency in dwelling on the fact that it depended on him—the restoration of Numè's health—irritated Orito. He knew Numè better than Mrs. Davis imagined; and knew, also, that she did not love him so that for the sake of it she would suddenly break down and become as white and frail as a lily beaten by a brutal wind.
Koto talked to him rapidly in Japanese. She wanted them to return home soon. Neither she nor Numè were comfortable. "Numè wanted to be all alone with Koto, where no one—not even the kind Americans—could intrude until she should be better again."
"I will carry her across the fields now," Orito said, and told Mrs. Davis of his intention of doing so. That lady seemed very anxious that the girl should not be removed for several days. But Numè settled the question by rising up from the couch and saying she was perfectly strong, and wanted to return home; that she would always be grateful for the kindness Mrs. Davis had shown her, but would Orito please take her home?
The American lady was in tears. She kissed the girl repeatedly before letting her go, but Numè was too listless to be responsive.
Ever since that day when she had fainted in the jinrikisha and had awakened in a high fever, Numè had been sick—ill with no particular malady, save perhaps the strain and shock.
Mrs. Davis had been very kind to her, waiting on her with her own hands, once staying up all night with her. In fact, she and Koto had vied with each other in serving and doing everything to please her, but Numè seemed to have lost interest in everything. The only thing that soothed her was for Koto to sing and play very gently to her, and this the little maid did constantly.
Sinclair had become suddenly attached to his work. He deserted the country for the city, remaining sometimes quite late in the evening in his office, attending to certain matters that had collected during his absences from the office. One was the case of an American missionary who had been arrested for attempting to bribe school boys to become Kirishitans (Christians). The charge against him was that he had caused dissension in several of the public schools by bribing certain of the poorer children to leave their schools, and, in some cases, their homes, and attend the missionary school in Tokyo. It was said that he had become a terror to parents in the district, who were afraid of losing their children, for he generally got them to accompany him by paying them small sums of money.
One deserter who had been converted to the Christian belief by a bright silver yen, was accredited with having told him after he had become a backslider and the missionary had reproached him: "You pay me ten more sen I go to church—you pay me twenty sen I love Jesus."
On the other hand, the missionary declared he had merely interfered and protested at the harsh treatment Christian children received at the hands of their playmates in the schools, and which he declared was encouraged by the teachers. In this way he had antagonized some bitter Japanese against him, who had had him unjustly arrested and thrown into prison.
The case was quite a serious one, as the missionary was a well-known man in America. It gave Sinclair plenty of thought and work, and he was untiring in his endeavor to obtain his discharge.
He had seen nothing of Numè since that day in the woods, when she had told him she had never cared for him. In spite of constant visitors and the volume of his work, which he tried personally to superintend for the time being, Sinclair could not forget Numè. The moment he was left to himself his mind would revert to the girl, to the dreamy days he had spent with her in the woods, to little things she had said that lingered in his mind like Japanese music. In spite of himself he could not hate her. Had she been an ordinary woman it might have been different, but with Numè could he cherish anything harsher against her than regret?
He tried to assure himself that he had put her from his mind altogether, that after all she was unworthy of his pain, but every incident that came up which reminded him of her, found him wandering back to the dear dead days he had spent with her, days that were tinged with bitterness and regret now.
So, though Sinclair tried honestly to forget Numè and harden himself against her, he could not do so. He grew so thin and wretched looking that his friends began to notice it. They thought it was due to the fact that he had worked so hard lately on the missionary's case.
"You ought to take a rest and change of some sort, Sinclair," Mr. Davis told him, "now that you have got the missionary off. Why not take a run down to Matsushima, where the Ballards are? Cleo thinks the spot even more beautiful than about Fuji-Yama."
"I hadn't thought of going away," Sinclair said, absently; "besides, Cleo is coming back next week, anyhow."
"Well, suppose you run down for the rest of the week, and then come home with the party."
Sinclair remained thinking a moment.
"Yes, perhaps it would divert me for the time being," he said, drawing his brows together with a sudden flash of pain, as he remembered how he had once told Numè that they would visit Matsushima together, some day. Mr. Davis left him at his desk.
"Can't make out what's the matter with Sinclair," he told his wife. "He looks wretched, and is as absent-minded as he can be. Seems to be worrying about something."
"He no doubt is—a—lonely, Walter. When Cleo returns he will be all right."
In the same way as she trusted or tried to make herself believe that Orito's presence would cure Numè, so she liked to imagine that Cleo Ballard's return would raise Sinclair out of the despondency into which he had fallen.
"No—Jenny, I think you make a mistake about Sinclair's caring so much for Cleo," Walter Davis said, slowly.
"What makes you say that?" his wife interrupted, sharply, fearful that he had guessed something during Numè's illness in their house; for she had told him nothing, as yet.
Her husband hesitated a moment before answering, then he said:
"Fact is, I saw on his desk quite a batch of unopened letters. I wanted Sinclair to go somewhere with me. He pleaded press of business, and I took it he had to answer those letters. They were all from one person, Jenny, and were lying in a letter basket on his desk without even the seals broken. I made the remark that he had quite a lot of mail for one day. What do you think he answered? 'This is nearly a week's mail'—and said he had forgotten the letters."
Davis flicked the ash from his cigar into a receiver, then he continued, slowly: "My dear, the letters were from Cleo Ballard. I know her writing. A man does not let the letters from a girl he is in love with remain unopened long," he added.
Mrs. Davis got up. "Walter," she said, indignantly, "that man is a—a brute."
Matsushima Bay is perhaps one of the most beautiful spots in Japan. It is on the northeastern coast, and being cool and refreshing is a favorite summer resort. Countless rocks of huge size and form are scattered in the bay, and these rocks are covered with pine trees. Unnamed flowers bloom also on these rocks and burn their surface with flaring colors. It may be that the rocks are even more nutritious than the earth itself; for the tall pines that take their root in them seem more graceful and delicate than those found on land, and the flowers are more fragrant and lovely than those of a fairyland dream.
About eight miles from the northern shore, where rests the beautiful city of Sendai, towers Mount Tomi, only a shadowy tracing in the evening skies.
It was in the city of Sendai that the party of tourists had settled. They were charmed with the beauty of their surroundings, and being, most of them, ardent lovers of nature, made daily trips, exploring the country, visiting the temple Zuiganji, which is located only a few cho from the beach. This temple originally belonged to Marquis Date, the feudal lord of Sendai, who sent an envoy to Rome in the seventeenth century, and a wooden image of him still stands in the temple. Or they climbed Mount Tomi in order to get a view of the matchless bay with its countless white rocks; eight hundred and eight, they are said to number, and there is only one rock in the entire bay which is bare of foliage. It is called Hadakajima, or Naked Island.
Sinclair arrived in this ideal, quiet, restful spot, travel-stained, sick-hearted and weary. Some of his travel had been by rail, a great part solely by kurumma. He had sent Cleo Ballard no word of his proposed trip, and he was not expected. She was not at the hotel when he arrived, having gone out with her party to the mountains.
Sinclair went immediately to the room assigned him, and after bathing went to bed in the middle of the day. He had not slept for several days, in spite of the strange lassitude and weariness he had felt. The inviting white of the American bed tempted him. It was perhaps the first real sleep he had had in weeks.
When the party of tourists returned to the hotel the clerk told Cleo Ballard of the arrival of a gentleman who had enquired for her. A glance at the register showed her Arthur Sinclair's name.
Fanny Morton and a number of women acquaintances were at her elbow. After the first start of emotion and surprise she tried to appear calm before them and as if she had expected him.
"So he has arrived?" she said carelessly to Tom—and to the clerk: "Please send him word that we have returned."
The boy brought the answer back that the American gentleman was sleeping—they did not like to wake him.
"He must be very tired," the girl said.
Sinclair did not appear in the dining-room that evening. His dinner was served to him in his room, and Cleo Ballard saw nothing of him till the following day.
"I am so glad you have come, dear," she told him; "the summer was going by so quickly, and I was afraid you had forgotten your promise."
"Did I make any promise," he asked, indifferently.
"Why, of course, Arthur;" she looked hurt.
"Well, I forgot, Cleo. One can't remember all these little things, you know."
"Then what made you come?" she asked, sharply, stung by his indifference.
"Not because of any promise, my dear," he said. "Simply because I was tired," and then as he saw her hurt face he added, with forced gentleness: "I wanted to see you—that was the chief reason, of course."
Cleo melted.
"You know, dear," she said, "we had arranged to go back to Tokyo the end of this week. Of course we will postpone our return, now, on your account. You really must see the country with us."
"Well, Cleo, I have seen Matsushima before. I only wanted a change for a day or two, that was all. No; don't delay the return home—as—I——," he struck some gravel aside with his cane; "the fact is, it is too quiet here, and I prefer the city."
The party returned to Tokyo about a week later, Sinclair feeling somewhat better. The bracing air, the beauty of the bay, and the constant companionship of friends, served to turn his mind, for a time, from his troubles.
Sinclair found a very odd letter waiting for him on his return to Tokyo. It was written in English, and ran as follows:
Tokyo, August 20, 1896.
Hon. A. Sinclair.
Dear Master Sir:—Here I write to you ashamed to say to below lines.
I intend to marry in next month soon as I get money. I must spend two hundred yen while I marry. My father gave me fifty yen upon day before yesterday, and I was have twenty yen on my hands. I have already seventy yen at present, and I know extraly some of my friends will help me.
Anyway, soon I shall have full one hundred yen, but I cannot begin marrying with that much money, so I complain to you for borrow me some money if you like that I going to marry. If you thinking right and borrow me some in this time, I will be thousand thanks for you until before I die. Afterward I will pay back to you as soon as I can, but I cannot pay you all in one time. I would pay six yen each end of per month.
Although this is not great bisiness for you, but as for me first greatly bisiness in my life. If you do not like to borrow me some money in this time I never marry in before several years.
Do as you please that you like it or not.
I have very many things to tell you, but I know English very little so I stop.
Your lovely (loving) clerk,
Shiku.
KOTO WOULD NOT MARRY.
Sinclair read the letter aloud to Taylor, and both of them laughed heartily, enjoying the contents; then he touched the electric button on his desk. The next minute Shiku was with them.
"So you want to marry, Shiku?"
"Yaes, master-sir."
"Um! Have you settled on the girl yet?"
"Yaes, master-sir."
"Fortunate girl!" from Taylor.
"And you think she'll have you?"
"Yaes, master-sir."
"What's her name?"
"Tominaga Koto."
"Not Koto whom I painted in the woods?" put in Taylor.
The boy nodded his head sagely.
Sinclair had grown suddenly silent. The mention of Koto's name instantly called up memories of Numè—memories that he had told himself, when at Matsushima with Cleo Ballard, would no longer cause him a pang. His voice was quite gentle as he spoke to Shiku.
"Well, go ahead and marry her, Shiku. I'll make you a gift of the money, and perhaps a trifle more."
The boy thanked him humbly, repeating over and over that he was a thousand thanks to him until before he died.
"Rum little chap that," Taylor said, as the boy left them.
"Yes, he is a bright little fellow. Been with me now ever since I came to Japan."
"Well, he's going to get a mighty pretty girl."
"Yes—I suppose so—as good as the rest of them."
The next day Shiku presented himself before the consul with a very woe-begone and disappointed countenance.
"Well, Shiku, what luck?" Sinclair asked him. For the boy had gone straight to Koto.
"Koto will not marry with me, master-sir."
"Why, I thought you told me she had already promised."
"Yaes—bud—she changing her mind."
Sinclair laughed, shortly.
"Been fooling you?"
"No;" he hesitated a moment, as though he feared to tell Sinclair the truth. Then he said: "She not like for to leave her mistress now;—" he paused again, looking uneasily at the consul, and shifting from one foot to the other.
Sinclair had been opening some letters with a paper-cutter while the boy had been speaking. He suddenly laid it down, and wheeled round on his chair.
"Well?"—he put in.
"Numè-san is quite sick," the boy said.
"Quite sick!" Sinclair rose with an effort. He was struggling with his desire to seem indifferent, even before the office boy, but a sudden feeling of longing and tenderness was overpowering him. It shocked him to think of Numè's being ill—bright, happy, healthful Numè.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"I not know. Koto say she cry plenty, and grow very thin,—that she have very much luf for somebody."
"Ah!"
"I tell Koto," the boy continued, "that I think she love Takashima Orito, and that he not love her she is very sad."
Sinclair began to pace the floor with restless, unsteady strides.
"Yes—it's doubtless that, Shiku," he said, nervously. "Well, I'm sorry—sorry that your—that your marriage will have to wait."
The same day that Sinclair had heard of Numè's illness, Cleo Ballard received a letter from Orito. It was very brief and simple.
"I am coming to see you," it ran, "at seven o'clock to-night, before your party will start. Then will I ask you for the answer you promised me."
Mrs. Davis was with her when she received the letter.
"Now, you must be strong, my dear," she said. "See him, and have it all over."
"Yes, I will," Cleo Ballard said.
Precisely at seven o'clock Takashima Orito presented himself at the hotel. He had told his father and Omi of his mission there; and the two old men were waiting in great trepidation for his return.
As he stood, calm but expectant, by the girl's side, waiting for her to speak first, she felt a sudden fear of him. She did not know what to say. She knew he was determined to have a direct answer now.
"I don't know what to say." She broke the strained silence desperately.
"I have only one answer to expect," he said, very gently. This answer silenced the girl. The Japanese came closer to her and looked full in her face.
"Will you marry with me, Miss Cleo?"
"I—I——" She shrank back, her face scared and averted.
"I cannot!" she said, scarcely above a whisper.
She did not look at him. She felt, rather than saw, that he had grown suddenly rigid and still. His voice did not falter, however.
"Will you tell me why?" he asked.
"Because—I—am already betrothed—to Mr. Sinclair. Because I never could love any one but him."
The shadows began to darken in the little sitting-room. The Japanese was standing almost as if petrified to the spot, immovable, silent. Suddenly she turned to him.
"Forgive me," she said, and tried to take his hand.
He turned slowly and left the room without one backward look.
The silence of the room frightened her. She went to a window and put her head out. A sudden vague terror of she knew not what seized her. Why was everything so still? Why did he leave her like that? If he only had reproached her—that would have been better;—but to go without a word to her! It was awful—it was uncanny—cruel. What did he intend to do? She began to conjure up in her mind all sorts of imaginary terrors. She told herself that she hated the stillness of the Japanese atmosphere; she wanted to go away—back to America, where she could forget everything—where, perhaps, Sinclair would be to her as he had been in the old days. She had been on a nervous strain all day, and she broke down utterly.
Mrs. Davis found her walking up and down the room hysterically.
"There, dear—it is all over now,"—she put her arms about the girl and tried to soothe her.
"No, no, Jen; I feel it is not over. I think—I imagine—Oh, Jenny, I don't know what to think. He acted so queerly. I don't know what to think. I dread everything. Jenny," she put her hand feverishly on the other woman's shoulder, "tell me about these Japanese—can they—do they feel as deeply as we do?"
"Yes—no; don't let's talk about them, dear. Remember, they are giving you and the travelers a big party to-night at the hotel. You must dress—it is nearly eight now."
Never had Cleo Ballard appeared so beautiful as that night. Her eyes shone brightly with excitement, her cheeks were a deep scarlet in hue, and her wonderful rounded neck and arms gleamed dazzlingly white against the black lace of her gown.
Even Sinclair roused out of his indifference to look after her in deep admiration.
"You are looking very beautiful to-night, Cleo," he said; and ten minutes afterwards Tom, passing with Rose Cranston on his arm, laid his hand on Cleo's shoulder: "You are looking unnaturally beautiful, Cleo. Anything wrong?"
"Must there necessarily be something wrong, Tom, because I am looking well?"
Tom gave her a scrutinizing glance. In spite of her quick bantering words there was something in the girl which made him think she was laboring under some intense excitement, and that it was this very excitement that was buoying her up and lending her a brilliancy that was almost unnatural. Tom knew the reaction must come. All through the evening he watched his cousin. She was surrounded almost constantly, save when she danced. Later in the evening he pushed his way to her side. She was resting after a dance.
"Cleo, you are dancing too much," he said, noting the girl's flushed cheeks.
"One can't do anything too much, you know, Tom. I hate moderation in anything—I hate anything lukewarm;" she was answering at random. He put his hand on hers. They burned with fever.
"You are not well at all," he said, and then added, looking about them anxiously: "I wonder where Sinclair is?"
The girl was possessed with a sudden anger.
"Don't ask me, Tom. I would be the last person to know of his whereabouts." The words were very bitter.
"You know, Cleo," he answered her, soothingly, "Sinclair never did care for this kind of thing. He is doubtless in the grounds somewhere. Wait—I'll hunt him up." He rose from his seat, but the girl stayed him peremptorily.
"Not for my sake, Tom. Oh, I assure you, I shall not wither without him," she said.
Tom sat down beside her again.
"Look here, little sis, don't get cynical—nor—nor untruthful. I know very well you want to see Sinclair. I have not seen you together all evening, and I believe it's partially that which makes you so restless. No use trying to fool old Tom about anything."
Cleo did not argue the point any longer, and Tom passed on to the piazza of the hotel.
Quite a lot of the guests were congregated there, some of them telling tales, others listening to the music. Tom made his way to where he saw Mrs. Davis standing. She was with Fanny Morton, and they seemed to be waiting for some one.
August is the universal month for holding banquets in honor of the full moon, in Japan, and gay parties of pleasure-seekers are to be met on the streets at all hours of the night.
"Seen Sinclair anywhere about?" Tom asked them.
"Yes, Tom," Mrs. Davis said, nervously. "He and Walter went down the street for a while. Something has happened. Mr. Sinclair thought some one had got hurt. They said they would be back in a minute."
Tom waited with the two women. The dance music floated out dreamily on the air, mingled with the incessant chatter and laughter of the guests. Inside the brilliantly-lighted ball-room the figures of the dancers passed back and forth before the windows.
As they sat silently listening, and watching the gay revelry, a weird sound struck on their ears—it was the muffled beating of Buddhist drums.
The two women and Tom rose to their feet shivering. They turned instinctively to go indoors. Standing quite near the door by which they entered was Cleo. Her beautiful face was flushed with fever; her eyes were filled with terror. She was leaning forward, listening to the faint, muffled beat of the drums.
"Some one is dead!" she said, in a piercing whisper, and threw her beautiful bare arms high above her head as she fell prone at their feet.
What awful premonition of disaster had filled Cleo Ballard all that night! The guests gathered awestruck about the fallen figure which, but a moment before, was so full of life, vivacity, and beauty.
"What is the matter?" some one breathed.
Fanny Morton's sharp words cut the air:
"Some Japanese has died, that is all—killed himself, they say. She fainted when she heard the drums beat."
Very gently they carried the unconscious girl to her room. The music had ceased; the guests had lost their appetite for enjoyment. Almost with one accord all, save a few stragglers, had deserted the ball-room, and were now grouped in the grounds of the hotel, or on the steps and piazzas, waiting for the return of the two men who had gone to learn the cause of the alarm.
At last they came up the path. They walked slowly, laggingly. Mrs. Davis ran down to meet them.
"What is it?" she whispered, fearfully. "Cleo has fainted, and a panic has spread among all the guests."
Walter Davis's usually good-tempered face was bleached to a white horror.
"Orito, his father, and Watanabe Omi have all killed themselves," he said, huskily.
The American lady stood stock-still, staring at them with fixed eyes of horror. The news spread rapidly among the guests, all of whom had known both families well. They were asking each other with pale lips—the cause? the cause?
Mrs. Davis clung in terror to her husband.
"Keep it from Cleo," she almost wailed. "Oh, don't let her know it—she must not know it—she must not."
The guests lingered late that night, in the open air. It was past three o'clock before they began to disperse slowly, one by one, to their rooms or their homes.
After leaving Cleo Ballard, Orito had jumped into the waiting kurumma, and had been driven directly home. There he found the two old men waiting for him. The house was unlighted, save by the moonlight, which was very bright that night, and streamed into the room, touching gently the white heads of the two old men as they sat on their mats patiently awaiting Orito's return. It touched something bright, also, that lay on a small table, and which gleamed with a scintillating light. It was a Japanese sword!
Orito entered the house very silently. He bowed low and courteously as he entered the room, in strict Japanese fashion. Then he began to speak.
"My father, you have accused me sometimes of being no longer Japanese. To-night I will surely be so. The woman of whom I told you was false, after all." His eyes wandered to the sword and dwelt there lovingly. He crossed to where it lay and picked it up, running his hand down its blade.
"I have no further desire to live, my father. Should I live I would go on loving—her—who is so unworthy. That would be a dishonor to the woman I would marry for your sakes, perhaps. Therefore, 'tis better to die an honorable death than to live a dishonorable life; for it is even so in this country, that my death would atone for all the suffering I have caused you. Very honorable would it be."
Sadly he bade the two old men farewell; but Sachi stayed his arm, frantically.
"Oh, my son, let thy father go first," he said.
One thrust only, in a vital part, a sound between a sigh and a moan, and the old man had fallen. Then quick as lightning Orito had cut his own throat. Omi stared in horror at the fallen dead. They were all he had loved on earth, for, alas! Numè had represented to him only the fact that she would some day be the wife of Orito. Never, since her birth, had he ceased to regret that she had not been a son. He picked the bloody sword up, and with a hand that had lost none of its old Samourai cunning he soon ended his own life.
About an hour after this a horror-stricken servant looked in at the room in its semi-darkness. He saw the three barely distinguishable dark forms on the floor, and ran wildly through the house, alarming all the servants and retainers of the household. Soon the room was flooded with light, and the dead were being raised gently and prepared for burial, amidst the lamentations of the servants, who had fairly idolized them. Relatives were sent for in post haste, and before the night had half ended the muffled beating of Buddhist drums was heard on the streets, for the families were well known and wealthy, and were to be given a great and honorable funeral. And also, the sounds of passionate weeping filled the air, and floated out from the house of death.
It was three days later. Cleo Ballard had been sick with nervous prostration ever since the night of the ball. Mrs. Davis was with her constantly, and would permit no one whatever to see her—not even Sinclair. She had told the facts to her husband and to the doctor, and had enlisted them on her side; so that it was not a difficult matter for her, for the time being, and while Cleo lay too ill to countermand her orders, to forbid any one from intruding, for she did not want her to know of the awful tragedy that had transpired.
Sinclair inquired day and night after Cleo's health, and sent flowers to her. He, himself, had suffered a great deal since that same night, what with the shock of his friend's death, Cleo's unexpected illness, and, above all, an inexplicable longing and desire to see Numè—to go to her and comfort her in this fresh trial that had come to her. She was now utterly alone in the world, he knew, save for one distant relative.
Thoroughly exhausted with the trials of the last days, and wishing to get away from the hotel, Sinclair had shut himself indoors, and had thrown himself on a couch, trying vainly to find rest. He kept puzzling over the cause of Takashima's death. Whether the truth had been suspected among some of the Americans who had been on the boat with Cleo and Orito or not, no one had as yet breathed a word of it to him. As he lay there restlessly, some one tapped on his wall.
"Who is it?" he called, fretfully.
"It is Shiku, master-sir."
"Well, come in."
The boy entered almost fearfully, and began apologizing profusely in advance.
"It is Koto who has made me intrude, master," he said. "She is waiting outside for you, and tells me she must talk with you. She will not enter the house, however, and she is very much fearful."
The American went to the door. There stood Koto, a trembling, frightened little figure in the half-light.
"Come in, Koto," he said, noting her embarrassment; and then, as she still hesitated, he drew her very gently but firmly into the house and closed the door. Soon she was seated in one of his large chairs, and because she was such a little thing it seemed almost to swallow her up.
"Numè not know that I come tell you of our grade sadness," she said, stumblingly. "Mrs. Davis will not forgive me forever, but I come tell you the trute, Mister Consul." She began to weep all of a sudden, and could go no further. The sight of the wretched little sobbing figure touched Sinclair very deeply. He thought she had some revelation to make about the death of Orito. He was unprepared for her next words.
"My mistress, Numè-san, luf vou so much that she going to die, I thing'."
Sinclair stood up, a strange, doubting, uncomprehending look on his face.
"What do you mean, Koto?" he asked, sternly. "Are you trying to—to fool me about something?"
"No! No! I not to fool with you. I tell you the trute. Mrs. Davis tell Numè of vaery sad story account the august Americazan lady wait long many years for you, that you love her always, just not love for a liddle while, because of Numè, that——"
A sudden light began to break in on Sinclair.
"So Numè tell you she not to luf because she want to serve the honorable Americazan ladies and not to pain her father and Takashima Sachi. Then she get vaery sick. She cry for you all the time, and when she is very sick she say: 'Koto, go tell Mr. Sinka I not mean.' Then when she is better she say: 'No; Koto must not go.'"
Sinclair sat down again, and shaded his face with his hand. His mind was in confusion. He could not think. Only out of the jumble of his thoughts came one idea—that Numè loved him, after all. Now he remembered how unnatural, how excited, she had been that last day. Ah, what a fool he was to have believed her then!
His voice was quite unsteady when he broke the long silence. "Koto! Koto! how can I ever repay you for what you have done?"
The little maid was weeping bitterly.
"Ah! Koto is vaery 'fraid that she tell you all this, account Mrs. Davis will speag that I mus' not worg any longer for Numè; she will tell her relatives so, and they will send me away. Then Numè will be all alone; because only Koto love Numè forever."
Sinclair was smiling very tenderly. "You have forgotten me, Koto. I will take care of both of you, never fear, little woman. I am going with you to her now."
"It is too late now," the girl said. "Numè will have retired when we reach home. Shiku is going to take me home, and to-morrow will you come?"
She rose from her seat, looking more hopeful and happy than when she had first come in.
"You will make it all good again," she said, looking up at him with somewhat of Numè's confidence: "for you are so big."
After Koto had left Sinclair he sat down to think. His brain was whirling, for his thoughts and plans were in confusion. His first impulse had been to go straight to Numè; but he had promised Koto to wait until the following day. Now that he was alone, he suddenly remembered Cleo Ballard. Was he free to go, after all? Could he desert Cleo now while she lay so sick and helpless? His joy in the renewed assurance of Numè's love for him had been suddenly tinged with bitter pain. What could he do?
He slept none through the night. In the morning of the next day he hurried over to the hotel and made his usual enquiries after Cleo's health. Mr. and Mrs. Davis, with Tom, had done their best to prevent him from knowing the cause of Orito's suicide. Various reasons had been suggested; and after the first alarm had worn off, and the bodies had been interred with due ceremony, the excitement subsided somewhat, so that they had hopes of the talk quieting down, and perhaps dying out altogether, without the truth reaching Sinclair's ears; for, knowing him to be her betrothed, there were few who were unkind or unscrupulous enough to tell him.
As Sinclair passed through the hotel corridor on his way to the front door, Fanny Morton came down the wide staircase of the hotel. She stopped him as he was going out.
"Let me express my sympathy," she said, sweetly.
"Your sympathy!" he said, coldly; for he did not like her. "I do not understand you, Miss Morton."
"Yes," she cooed. "I am sure I can vouch for Cleo that she never dreamed he would take it so seriously. I was with them on the voyage out, you know, and indeed Cleo often said the passengers were dull. He cheered her up, and—and——"
"Really, Miss Morton, I am at a loss to understand you," he said, curtly.
Fanny Morton showed her colors. There was no suggestion of sweetness in her voice now.
"I mean that every one knows that Mr. Takashima killed himself because he was in love with Miss Ballard; because she let him believe on the boat that she reciprocated his—affection, and the night of the ball she told him the truth. He killed himself, they say, hardly an hour after he had seen her."
Jenny Davis stood right at the back of them. She had heard the woman's venomous words, but was powerless to refute them. Sinclair felt her eyes fixed on him with an entreaty that was pitiful.
He raised his hat to Fannie Morton.
"I will wish you good morning," he said, cuttingly, and that was all.
Then he turned to the other woman.
"Let us go in here," he said, and drew her into a small sitting-room.
"What does that woman mean?" he asked.
Mrs. Davis had broken down.
"We can't keep on pretending any longer, Mr. Sinclair. Yes; it is true, what she says. Poor Cleo did lead him on, thoughtlessly—you know the rest."
A look of dogged sternness began to settle on Sinclair's face.
"Then she was the real cause of——"
"No! no! don't say that. Arthur, she never intended doing any harm. Cleo would not willingly harm anything or any one. She really liked him. Tom will tell you. It was the reason why she never had the heart to tell him—of—of her engagement to you."
For a long time the two sat in moody silence. Then Sinclair said, almost bitterly: "And it was for her that Numè suffered."
"Why, Numè—is—what do you mean?" the other asked, showing signs of hysteria.
"Yes; Mrs. Davis, I know the truth," he said, grimly. "I understand that you thought you were really serving Cleo and myself by acting so—but—well, a man is not cured of love so easily, you know. She (Numè) gave me up because she did not want to spoil a good woman's life, as she thought, after what you told her. This same woman did not scruple to take from her the man who might have comforted her after everything else had failed. Now she is utterly alone."
"I won't say anything now," Mrs. Davis said, bitterly. "I can't defend myself. You would not understand. It is easy to be hard where we do not love;—that is why you have no mercy on Cleo."
"I am thinking of Numè," the man answered.
"May I ask what you intend to do?"
"Last night I was uncertain. This morning, now that I know the truth, things are plain before me. I am going to Numè," he added, firmly.
"But Cleo?" the other almost implored.
"I cannot think of her now."
"But you will have to see her. What can you tell her? We are hiding from her, as best we can, the fact of—of the tragedy. That would kill her; as for your ceasing to care for her, she suspected the possibility of it long ago, and might survive that. Yet how can she know the one without the other?"
Sinclair remained thinking a moment.
"There is only one way. Let her think of me what she will. You are right; if possible the truth—even Takashima's death—must be kept from her so long as she is too weak to bear the knowledge. Can we not have her make the return voyage soon? I will write to her, and though it will sound brutal, I will tell her that the reason why I cannot be more to her than a friend is—because I—I do not love her,—that I love another woman."
Mrs. Davis was weeping bitterly. All her efforts and plans had been of no avail in Cleo's behalf. She saw it now, and did not even try to hold Sinclair.
"Yes," she said, almost wildly. "Go to Numè—she will comfort you. At least your sorrows and hers have ended, now. But as for ours—Cleo's and mine, for I have always loved her better than if she were my own sister—we will try to forget, too."
Koto had told Numè nothing of her visit to Sinclair. The girl had been so stunned by the deaths of her father, Orito, and Sachi, that Koto had not the heart even to tell her good news; for when our friends are in sorrow the best comfort one can give is to weep and sorrow with them;—so the Japanese believe. Besides, she wanted Sinclair's coming to be a surprise to the girl.