In one of the farther groups before the temple steps was a miniature rick-sha drawn by a servant. It held a child who had not walked since a night when, with clenched hands and brave little heart, he had run into the path of a speeding motor-car. On the breast of his wadded kimono was a knot of ribbon at which the other children gazed in awe and wonder. It had been pinned one night to a small hospital shirt when the wandering eyes were hot with fever and the baby face pinched and white, by a lady whom Ishikichi had thought must be the Sun Goddess at very least, and before whom the attendants of that room of pain had bowed to the very mats. He knew that in some dim way, without quite knowing how, he had helped that great, mysterious something that meant the Government of Japan, and that he should be very proud of it. But Ishikichi was far prouder of the fine foreign front that had displaced the poor little shop in the Street-of-prayer-to-the-Gods.
Nearer the gateway, on the edge of the gathering, stood an old man, his face seamed and lined, but with eye clear and young and a smile on his face. The crest on his sleeve was the mon of an ancient and honored samurai family. He leaned on the arm of his adopted son—a Commander of the Imperial Navy whose name had once been Ishida Hetaro. They stood apart, regarding not the Temple, but the low building across the hedge, behind whose bamboo lattice dim forms passed and repassed.
"Look," said Barbara suddenly, and touched Daunt's arm. A woman's figure had paused at the lattice of the nunnery. She was dressed in slate-color and her delicate features and close-shaven head gave her a singularly unearthly appearance, like an ethereal and angelic boy. The little two-wheeled carriage drew up at the lattice and a slender hand reached out and patted the round cropped head of its occupant. As the vehicle was drawn away, the nun looked up and across the yard—toward the old samurai and the young naval officer. The wraith of a flush crept into her cheek. She smiled, and they smiled in return, the placid Japanese smile which is the rainbow of forbidden tears. A second they stood thus, then the slate-colored figure drew back and was gone, and the old man, supported by the younger arm, passed slowly out of the yard.
Barbara's eyes were still on the lattice as Daunt spoke. "What is it?" he asked.
"The face of the nun there," she said, with vague wistfulness. "It reminds me of some one I have known. Who can it be, I wonder!"
They crossed the yard, and entered the deserted garden. The great ruin at its side was covered with friendly shrubs and the all-transfiguring snow. The line of stepping-stones had been swept clean and beside the frost-fretted lake an irregular segment of rock, closely carved with ideographs, had been planted upright. It stood in mystic peace, looking between the snow-buried, birdless trees toward the horizon where Fuji-San towered into the infinite calm—a magical mountain woven of a world of gems, on which the sun's heart beat in a tumult. At the base of the stone slab were Buddhist vases filled with green leaves in fresh water, and in one of these Barbara placed the branch of plum-blossoms. Its pink petals lay against the brown rock like the kiss of spring on a wintry heart.
As she arranged the sprays, Daunt stood looking down on her bent head, where, under her fur hat, the sun was etching gold-hued lines on the soft copper of her hair. He had taken a yellowed envelope from his pocket.
"Do you remember, dearest," he said, "that I once told you of an old envelope in the Chancery safe bearing the name of Aloysius Thorn?"
"Yes," she answered wonderingly.
"It was opened, after his death, while you were away. It contained his will. I turned it into Japanese, as best I could, for the temple priests. It is carved there on the stone. The Ambassador gave the original to the bishop, and he handed it to me to-day for you. He thought you would like to keep it." He drew the paper from the discolored envelope and handed it to her.