“Dear,” he said, “when I look at you to-night I am reminded of an adventure that came to me many years since.”
O’Yuki spoke not at all, but stitched diligently.
“It was an adventure or a dream,” said the man her husband, “and which it was I cannot tell. Strange it was as a dream, yet I think I did not sleep.”
O’Yuki went on sewing.
“Then, only then, I saw a woman, who was as beautiful as you are and as white ... indeed, she was very like you.”
“Tell me about her,” said O’Yuki, not lifting her eyes from her work.
“Why,” said the man, “I have never spoken of her to anybody.” Yet he spoke then to his undoing. He told of his journey, and how he and his companion, being benighted in a snow-storm, took shelter in a hut. He spoke of the white Cold Lady, and of how his friend had died in her chill embrace.
“Then she came to my side and leaned over me, but she said, ‘It is only a boy ... a pretty boy ... I cannot kill him.’ Gods! How cold she was ... how cold.... Afterwards she made me swear, before she left me she made me swear....”
“You must never speak of me, nor of this night,” O’Yuki said, “not to father, nor mother, nor brother, nor sister, nor to betrothed maid, nor to wedded wife, nor to boy child, nor to girl child, nor to sun, nor moon, nor water, fire, wind, rain, snow. All this you swore to me, my husband, even to me. And after all these years you have broken your oath. Unkind, unfaithful, and untrue!” She folded her work together and laid it aside. Then she went to where the children were, and bent her face over each in turn.
The eldest murmured “Cold ... Cold ...” so she drew the quilt up over his shoulder.