It Happened in Japan

by Baroness Albert d' Anethan

The trio of ladies had been but a few days at Nikko when they were joined by the Swedish Minister and Nicholson, Tokyo being found unbearably dull after the departure of their friends. Nikko, with its sparkling, verdure-bordered streams and cloudless sky, its fairylike and wooded glens, its avenues of great pine trees dusky in the gathering shadows of the night,--is an ideal spot for lovers. This fact Amy and Ralph were not long in discovering for themselves, and from the day that the latter joined them, Mrs. Rawlinson was permitted to see but next to nothing of her pretty niece, and with her usual good-temper, accepted the inevitable.

As for Pearl Nugent, she was at this moment passing through a period of transition, difficult to imagine and still more difficult to endure. She who for so long had devoted first her existence, and later on her thoughts to one sole object, awoke one day to find that all was transformed--that the dream was over, and that she loved no longer.

Needless to say, the awakening was a cruel one.

To her dismay, not only did she discover that this passion of her life, which till now had never even flickered, but had burned with an ever-steady glow, not only was this passion extinguished for ever,--but slowly and positively the fact dawned upon Pearl that the mere mention of the name of Martinworth was alone sufficient to give rise to a sentiment of shrinking terror, of breathless dismay, of overwhelming consternation and regret. She could not think of that fatal letter of summons, of his passionate reply to that letter, already expressive of immediate possession, of that conquering look of triumph on his face when he entered her room that eventful night,--without turning white with consuming shame, with misery and reproach.

She hated herself as she recalled those moments. And in hating herself she realised that slowly developing was an incipient feeling of dislike against the man who, however unwittingly, had given rise to these sentiments of humiliation and disgrace.

She did not for one moment attempt to disguise from herself the cruel injustice of this feeling. She knew well enough that Martinworth had conducted himself with unselfish and most unusual abnegation in withdrawing all claim to one who had said, "I am yours--take me!" She knew that nine men out of ten would have unflinchingly held her to her word, allowing no temporary stumbling block of shrinking feminine vacillation to intercept the realization of their strivings, the unfaltering desire of years. She knew that it was his deep and absorbing love that was the cause--the unconscious cause--of that prompt decision of renouncing her for ever. And yet, knowing all this, it was in her eyes sufficient that he should have witnessed her in that period of humiliation, that he should have divined, if only partially, her agony of mind during those days of weakness and of degradation, for her to shrink, not only with fear and distaste, but what was more--with horror and dismay from the man she had once so passionately loved, so ardently admired and believed in.

She had fallen so low--so bitterly low in her own eyes. True, at the supreme moment of the crisis she had fled from the consequences of her final undoing. But Pearl's natural candour of disposition, her innate honesty, did not permit her to cloak over with weak sophistries and self-excuses what she knew at one time had been not only her firm intention, but in those days of frenzy, her sole desire and earnest aspiration.

During many hours of necessary idleness she would lie on her chaise longue, brooding over every incident since Martinworth had once more come into her life. This process of self-examination became almost morbid in its intensity and repetition. But all her thought, her constant restless brooding, did not satisfactorily explain to her the reason of that hasty, that impetuous appeal at the eleventh hour to Amy Mendovy. Why had joyful anticipation so suddenly given place to terror? and what was the impulse that had prompted her at the last moment to indite that desperate, that frantic note for aid?

Pearl believed in a God, and at times she found herself asking if this sudden saving act, this possible loophole of escape, had not indeed been inspired by an unheard Voice, by Divine and Holy intermediation?

This question, however, like so many that she asked herself during these weeks, remained unanswered, and the only feeling that stood out clear in Pearl's confused and weary mind was the prayerful hope that never again would it be her misfortune to come across the man who had given rise to such relentless feelings of shame and self-humiliation.