A few days later. It is early evening and the crickets are making a
great bustle in the grasses, while a small, gray ape, swinging in a
bamboo, is mingling its chattering with the cawing of the crows in the
camphor-trees.
“Summer is passing,” said Hyacinth, “for everything is complaining.”
“I do not complain,” said Koma.
“No; life will always be summer for you. You are not going away from
Nippon.”
“Are you?” he asked.
“There is no help for me,” she said. “I grow more melancholy each day.”
“Is it only Japan you care about leaving?”
“Japan holds all—all that is dear to me.”
“And can you enumerate them—the things that are dear to you?”
She shook her head drearily.
“No,” she said, “I cannot.”
“Yet you could stay here if you wished.”
“No. How could I?”
“Did not that young American from the consulate in Tokyo ask you to
marry him? He lives here in Japan, necessarily.”
She laughed.
“Was he not kind?” she said.
“Why did you refuse him?”
“Oh, for many reasons.”
“Tell me them.”
“He belongs to the West country, after all.”
“He does not think so. For your sake he would forswear even that.”
“Ah, but he does so, nevertheless. The gods—no, his God—fashioned him
for his own land.”
“And was that the only reason why you refused him?”
“No. I do—do not—” She hesitated, and turned her head droopingly from
him. “I do not love him,” she said, simply.
“You did not love Yamashiro Yoshida, yet you would have married him.”
“I did not know better,” she said, faintly.
“But it is only a little while since.”
“A month,” she said; “since you returned.”
“Confess to me,” he said, his eyes gleaming, “that it was I who made you
know the meaning of love, and I will tell you why you are not going to
America to-morrow—no, nor the day after, nor until you shall go with
me.”
“What can I confess?” she said, tremulously. “I do not know what you
wish, dear Koma.” She was trembling now.
“Confess to me,” he said, “else I cannot speak, for fear I should wrong
you, my little one. I will not try to urge you to stay here—with
me—unless—”
“I—I cannot speak,” she said. “I know not what to say.”
“Then I will speak,” he said. “I love you, I love you, Hyacinth; with
all the life that throbs within me, I love you. Do you understand? No,
do not speak unless you can answer my heart with your own. I want you
for my own. Ah, I know I have won you! It is not a delusion, for I see
it in your eyes, your lips. You do not know it yet, you are so innocent
and pure, but I—ah, I am sure of it!”
She raised her quivering face to his in the moonlight. Then suddenly her
head fell upon her clasped hands.
“Ah, is this—love?” she said.
He lifted her face and kissed her lips, her eyes, then her little,
trembling hands.
“This is love—and this, and this.”
Later they came to a hidden path arched on either side by the drooping
bamboos. The moon was above them, making a silver pathway for their
feet.
“Whither do we go?” she tremulously whispered.
“I know the way,” said he, gently leading her onward.
They came to an open space, a narrow field. And on the grass, the winds,
gently blowing, moved back and forth in the moonlight strange wisps of
white paper.
“It is the Path of Prayer,” said Koma.
She understood, and was dumb with the thrilling of her emotions.
“Here,” he said, “the Goddess of Mercy walks nightly. Though we are no
longer sad, let us leave our prayer here among these sad petitions for
her to read.”
“Yes,” she said, “and we will pray to Kuannon for those less fortunate
than we.”
Kneeling there in the silver light, they wrote on fragments of paper
their simple prayers. Did the Heavenly Lady, when trailing her robes of
mercy through the Path of Prayer, read also the petitions of the lovers?
They left the Path of Prayer and climbed to the summit of the hill.
Softly they turned their feet towards the mission-house.
“We have said our prayers to Kuannon—now we will turn to the God of our
fathers,” he whispered.
They paused a moment on the missionary’s doorstep. She raised her face
to his.
“The Reverend Blount may refuse,” she said.
“He will not,” he assured her, “since he has promised me. Come!”
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● Transcriber’s note:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.