“I thought you had turned Christian?” interceded Yodogima, thoughtlessly.

“So I have; but you may need not some forgiveness; circumstance no sooner governs than fulfilment predicates—the act, if not our meed. What matter how or where we pray and do, when wrought in heaven’s likening span? It is the consequence, and not its revelation, that makes duty paramount. Therefore, seek you, who have only to choose; it is for such as I to fashion, and when this particular god shall have served you as he never did me, why, then, you, too, may have occasion to flit and none to reason. I tell you there are as many ways as creeds, or less, and I’d try them out, all of them, though not so beautiful.”

Yodogima laughed outright in spite of conditions:

“What in heaven’s name has beauty to do with religion?”

“My dear Yodogima; it has everything to do with it; as it has to do with all things and everybody, the gods, their churches, and our bounties included. Do you suppose, for a minute, that I should be here, to-day, were it not for you? And it’s a part of my religion to serve and trust that trust may serve.”

“How kind!”

“You won’t fail me, will you, Yodogima?”

“I’ll think about it; I do not wish to be narrow, or—outwitted.”

An unlooked-for restlessness appeared to have swept into the land; and all the barons and captains grew uneasy with inaction or impatient of conditions. To Yodogima it seemed that in some way she alone were responsible for the cause, if not the effect, of such unheard-of conditions. Hideyoshi knew better; and smarting with shame or repenting of foolhardiness turned again toward Ozaka.

No such joy had come to Yodogima since the day Ieyasu promised his love and protection. While Oyea had never broken faith, and still professed friendship, the younger wife had long ago amply discovered the reason, and knew fairly in her own heart that once a wife in fact no husband might share his love or respect or favor without breaking the tenderer thread, no matter what the demands or the edicts of society and of law, or both. Whether for good or for ill there could be no compromise where an affinity had laid its hand upon that and that alone vital, if not sacred, unto itself. The older wife’s interest had resolved only the shielding of an inner vanity, as Hideyoshi’s accusations laid bare the outward appearance of that same inborn, unmanageable tendency: call it by what name one might, govern as the world should see fit, it were yet a force no less determinate of man than absolute in the revelation of God.