"divine retirement," when the spirit is privileged to enter most
closely into the hearts of those that pray, Mata had believed that,
beyond doubt, the full ceremony would be held. Surely the sweet,
wandering soul was now to be given its kaimyo, was to be soothed by
prayer, and be refreshed by the ghostly essence of tea and rice and
fruit, placed before its ihai upon the shrine! What must the dead
girl's mother have been thinking all this time? Mata woke before the
dawn to pray. Kano, too, was awake early. She hurried to him, her
first words a petition. But, no, he had no thought, even on this day
of all days, for his child. He was off without his breakfast, an hour
earlier than usual, to the hospital, a letter in his hand. Mata
literally fell upon her knees before him, importuning him for the honor
of the family name, if not in love for Ume-ko, to give orders at the
temple for the holding of religious ceremonies. But Kano, himself
almost in tears, eager, excited, though obviously in quite another
whirlpool of emotions, urged her to be patient just a little longer.
"I think all will yet be well," he assured her. "I have some hope
to-day!"

"All will yet be well!" mocked the old dame through clenched teeth,
watching the bent old figure hurrying from her. "As if anything could
ever again be well, with my young mistress dead, and not even her body
recovered for burial!"

In spite of her dislike for Tatsu, the lonely woman found herself
watching, with some impatience, for the day of his actual return.
Successive postponements had fretted her, and sharpened curiosity. She
had not seen him since his illness. Upon that January noon when his
kuruma rolled slowly in under the gate-roof, followed by anxious Kano
and one of the male nurses from the hospital, she had turned toward him
the old look of resentment: but, instead of the brief and chilling
glance she had thought to use, found herself staring, gaping, in
amazement and incredulity. She did not believe, for the first moment,
that the wreck she saw was Tatsu. This bowed and shrunken ghost of
suffering,--this loose, pallid semblance of a man, the beautiful,
defiant, compelling demigod of the mountains that had swept down upon
them! No! sorrow could wreak miracles of the soul, but no such
physical transformation as this!

She continued to watch furtively, in a sort of terror, the tall figure
as it was assisted from the kuruma and led, shambling, through the