from
her eyes. But they could not be seen now and she let them fall. Nor need
she talk and thus betray herself. Yone had lost all fear in the giving
of her hand and now chattered on.

"Come--to the tomb of Lord Esas, where we made the seat of a stone and
moss. It is there yet. I have kept it as it was. Often I have sat there.
Only once before were we here at night--hiding, as perhaps we shall
to-night, when the watchman comes with his lantern and staff. Shall we
go to the tomb of Lord Esas, beloved?"

"Yes," said Hoshiko.

"You speak as if you wept--and, when you turned, your face looked as if
you had wept. Oh, it looked for a moment like a woman's--and not a
soldier's! Soldiers do not weep."

"Soldiers weep. I do."

"Ani-San! For me?"

"For you."

"The waiting?"

"The waiting."

"But, then, weep no more, Ani-San. I am here--at your side. All the
waiting is forgot. Blotted out by this one great moment. And
perhaps--Here is the seat. Is it not all as it was? Though it is ten
years--ten years of weary waiting. Here you sat, always, here I sat. And
we are grown too old now to change."

She laughed timorously, and when Hoshiko had seated herself where
Arisuga had once sat, she took her place as if there were no years
between this and that. Then she went on:--

"--perhaps, to-night, you will be as sweet as you were on that other
night--when--Do you remember?"

"I remember," said Hoshiko.

"But we have no samisen. Yet I can sing--if you ask me--"

"Sing."

"--the song of 'The Moon-and-the-Stork,' which we ourselves
made--here--where the moon looked down upon us. See, it knows. It knows
you are come. There it passes above the great criptomeria now.
And--and--oh, it is an omen of all good! A stork flies over its face. Or
it is a branch of the tree? No matter, the omen is the same, Ani-San;
all is as it was, is it not?"

"All is as it was, beloved," whispered Hoshiko.

Yone came diffidently closer at the dear word.

"When I sang that night I was in your arms--"

The arms of Hoshiko closed about the girl at her side almost with
violence.

"That is it," she cried happily, nesting there. "Yes, that is quite it.
Don't you remember how your violence frightened me until you explained
that it was love? And we laughed. Now we are sad. We used to laugh
then. And you could not play the samisen because I was in your arms. And
I would not get out of them. So that I sang without the samisen that
night. Therefore