“I have been to see O Toku San,” replied Campanula, speaking in Japanese. “She is dying. Her heart is dead,” said Campanula, putting her other little hand over her own heart. “I am—oh, so sad! for to-day the thought of death has come to me, a thought that I never knew before.”
“Child, child,” said M’Gourley, “dinna speak like that. We must all die soon or later—ay, ay, we must all die, sure enough.”
“But not so sadly as she,” replied Campanula with a little sob.
M’Gourley looked at her; she was in tears.
He drew her close to him just as a mother might have done, and held her to him whilst she rested her head against his old coat, and sobbed and wept like a little child, gazing at the landscape garden through the veil of her tears.
He rocked her gently to soothe her, but said nothing, holding her just as he had held her that day in the gardens of Dai Nichi Do, as if to protect her against Death, as he had that day protected her against the vision of the terrible Akudogi.
Her sobs slowly ceased, but still she kept her cheek rested against his coat.
“What is Death?” she suddenly asked. The question was quite beyond M’Gourley.
“Dinna ask me,” he said. “It’s what we all must come to some day.”
“And will O Toku San see him she loved when she goes—there?” continued she, as if unheeding his reply. “Perhaps”—after a long pause—“he will know her love for him when he too is there, and make her happy.”