and led him into
the house. After they had talked together for some time, she said:--

"Listen to me, Master Takasegawa. I have been thinking over all this
for some time, and I see no help for it but to kill Jiuyemon and make
an end of him."

"What do you want to do that for?"

"As long as he is alive, we cannot be married. What I propose is that
you should buy some poison, and I will put it secretly into his food.
When he is dead, we can be happy to our hearts' content."

At first Takasegawa was startled and bewildered by the audacity of
their scheme; but forgetting the gratitude which he owed to Jiuyemon
for sparing his life on the previous occasion, he replied:--

"Well, I think it can be managed. I have a friend who is a physician,
so I will get him to compound some poison for me, and will send it to
you. You must look out for a moment when your husband is not on his
guard, and get him to take it."

Having agreed upon this, Takasegawa went away, and, having employed a
physician to make up the poison, sent it to O Hiyaku in a letter,
suggesting that the poison should be mixed up with a sort of macaroni,
of which Jiuyemon was very fond. Having read the letter, she put it
carefully away in a drawer of her cupboard, and waited until Jiuyemon
should express a wish to eat some macaroni.

One day, towards the time of the New Year, when O Hiyaku had gone out
to a party with a few of her friends, it happened that Jiuyemon, being
alone in the house, was in want of some little thing, and, failing to
find it anywhere, at last bethought himself to look for it in O
Hiyaku's cupboard; and as he was searching amongst the odds and ends
which it contained, he came upon the fatal letter. When he read the
scheme for putting poison in his macaroni, he was taken aback, and
said to himself, "When I caught those two beasts in their wickedness I
spared them, because their blood would have defiled my sword; and now
they are not even grateful for my mercy. Their crime is beyond all
power of language to express, and I will kill them together."

So he put back the letter in its place, and waited for his wife to
come home. So soon as she made her appearance he said--

"You have come home early, O Hiyaku. I feel very dull and lonely this
evening; let us have a little wine."

And as he spoke without any semblance of anger, it never entered O
Hiyaku's mind that he had seen the letter; so she went about her
household duties with a quiet