It Happened in Japan

by Baroness Albert d' Anethan

There was a pause as Pearl threw herself back wearily on to her cushions.

"I cannot see her," she said at length, "I am too weak. She--she is so jerky--so abrupt. She--she would fatigue me."

Mrs. Rawlinson did not press the point. But she was not greatly surprised when some days later Pearl after a long silence, quietly suggested that if Lady Martinworth called again, she would receive her.

Henceforth commenced a series of visits which eventually proved of great pleasure and of a certain amount of profit to both women. Lord Martinworth's name was by tacit consent never mentioned, and when Pearl realised that no danger from that quarter was to be feared, she allowed herself to show genuine satisfaction at his wife's presence in her house.

It must be confessed Lady Martinworth deserved considerable credit for the tact and cleverness she exhibited in amusing the invalid. Greatly as both Rosina and Amy might wonder at this strange and unexpected friendship, they could not but feel grateful for each smile which the visitor, with her quaint and caustic remarks, would succeed in conjuring up on the pale, sad face.

But Lady Martinworth was not the only person admitted to Pearl's presence during this period of convalescence. De Güldenfeldt had returned from his travels at the very moment Mrs. Nugent's condition was considered the most critical, and he had hardly put foot in Tokyo before he was met with the news of her almost hopeless condition. This distressing information accomplished at one stroke what months of absence, of distraction, and of meditation had failed to do. Stanislas straightway forgot the fact that for long he had borne a bitter grudge against this woman, who had treated both him and his proposal with such calm and complete indifference. Not only all his love, but all his sympathies, all his fears for her safety, were aroused at this crushing news, and in spite of the accumulation of work awaiting him on his return, he found he could put his mind to nothing while Mrs. Nugent's fate hung in the balance. He haunted the house, sitting for hours in the drawing-room alone, or pacing the garden, till Amy or Rosina taking pity on him, would steal a minute from their duties to inform him how the patient was progressing, or to give him the doctor's latest report.

It was during this miserable period that Rosina guessed his secret. Indeed, a child could have read it, for it was easy enough to divine, and de Güldenfeldt himself made next to no attempt to disguise his feelings. One day, in a specially despairing mood, he went so far as to hint to Mrs. Rawlinson what had passed between him and Pearl. He found a sympathetic listener, and consequently ended by confiding all those cherished hopes which had met with so unexpected and so disastrous a termination.

Like all large-hearted women, Rosina was somewhat of a matchmaker. At a glance she saw the many advantages that Pearl had thrown away in this refusal of Stanislas de Güldenfeldt's love and protection. Promptly she decided in her own mind that if her cousin should be spared, it would certainly not be her--Rosina Rawlinson's--fault if matters were not one day brought to an entirely satisfactory conclusion.

But now was not the time to think of such things. It was only later on, when Pearl was passing so many hours of enforced idleness on her sofa, that somehow it became a matter of course that Stanislas de Güldenfeldt should be found seated by her side, reading to her in his pleasant voice the latest books from Europe, or talking to her as only he could talk.

That Pearl found pleasure in his society was evident. She seemed to forget that anything of a painful nature had ever passed between them. Her face would brighten as his form appeared on the verandah, and she would greet him gladly with her soft voice. De Güldenfeldt would often wonder whether in the very smallest degree she understood, not only how blessed for him were those many hours spent thus by the side of her sofa, but likewise how intensely he dreaded the fatal moment when she would once more take up her everyday life, and when he consequently would necessarily be shifted to the conventional rank of the occasional afternoon visitor.