arrived. He did not even look up.

"You will be transferred to a Hakodate regiment," he said in a monotone;
"they are ruffians, but good soldiers. You will report to your new
regiment when you are recalled. Your furlough must be spent in America
and in communication with headquarters."

This was exile, but mitigated by every possible circumstance.

"Sir," said Arisuga, with emotion, "I do not deserve this
consideration."

"No," answered his colonel; "but your wife does."

Have I let you suppose that Hoshiko accepted all this perilous happiness
without question? No Japanese woman ever does that. It is true that, at
first, there was no thought--there could be none. The gods had put them
both suddenly into a position from which they could not retreat. But
after that, when thought came, and Hoshiko knew that it had all been for
her, and how much it was that he had given--then she began to prepare
her recompense. To you it would have been a strange one, but it was not
so to her. What she had taken beyond her share from the universal
happiness, that she would balance with such suffering as came.

What she had taken from him, the shade of his father, that she would
restore. What he stood in danger of losing because of her, that she
would insure against loss. And the gods would help her. For they always
heeded such constant and faithful praying as she meant to render. At
last she knew that they would. For they sent her a sign. But before I
speak of that I must go on and make plain what her purpose came finally
to be. Nothing less than to make sure in some way (she waited on the
gods to make the way plain to her) that since she prevented Shijiro from
dying for his emperor in his father's stead, his reparation should come
about in some other way--perhaps some way not thought of as yet--even
by the gods. All she could do now was to pray that if he should die the
small white death, the gods would send _her_ some sort of reincarnation
in which _she_ might accomplish his purpose, though he were dead. And of
course, whether she survived him or not, this was possible, to the
immortal gods. But I think she had no idea that she--she herself--might
herself be the instrument--that the gods meant anything as strange and
startling as that--nor that her reincarnation might be in the very form
of her husband while she yet lived. She would not be likely to think of
precisely that. Until that day of the sign from heaven itself--that day
wh