“Then Ishida has done more than play the traitor; he has vilified a good woman: more, he has sought to ruin a worthy wife. I swear it, he shall rue the day.”

In all these years Yodogima had done everything in her power to live the life of a faithful, dutiful, and appreciative wife—such as the law and the pleasure of man had enforced. No longer might she question the act, or consult morals; she had chosen to abide the sterner edicts of a social organism utterly beyond the revision or prevision of any one individual, much less a woman: who had neither voice nor hand in the making, nor could suggest its undoing. Yet the closer the reality the more transcendant became her one inspiration. The star that had guided her from infancy shone the brighter for the gloom; that enshrouded a heart, in which there lived a conscience: the dictates of which had long ago flung her upon the mercies of a less grinding, more tolerant fate.

“I will be true to my Kami, though declared false by all the creeds of all the gods,” promised she, to herself, long after the grey-haired Kuroda had gone: when the stars had inspired that larger comprehension than of things we think we know.

The night brought, too, its peace of rest, and on the morrow Yodogima awakened to a juster realization of affairs close at hand; swift couriers brought tidings of a great change at the seat of authority, Fushima—lately established by Hideyoshi as his own official residence, but just now turned over to Hidetsugu, his nephew, whom he had adopted and made kwambaku, he himself assuming the title of Taiko.

Scorn, therefore, began, presently, to take the place of due consideration; rumor travelled fast, and the master’s change of title, and the adoption of an heir, soon raised the question of failure: Yodogima was now charged with vilest remission, and had not resignation sooner prepared the way she, too, must have fallen before the rank avalanche of duller ingratitude than follows in the wake of blind assumption.

The nation had been wronged, and the man who had placed his trust in her, abused: it devolved upon her and none other to right the grievous evil that had apparently been accepted as final.

“What in His name can I do?” begged and plead the princess, in the only way that she knew.

Then Oyea stealthily came to Ozaka, advising and befriending.

The older of the two wives did not threaten; she had learned by experience and conversion that the more effective course lay in subtler means, perhaps in truth.

“Why don’t you visit Hiyeisan? There is a temple there—”