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"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
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