“Good,” replied Hideyoshi; “I see the point; I am rightly rebuked, for going about unattended.”

“Permit me to propose the good offices of Harunaga, as an escort thence to Ozaka: I need not vouch for him, a gentleman, and the taiko is—”

“A father,” interposed Hideyoshi, looking Harunaga squarely in the face.

The latter winced, but proffered his services, as urged and designed by Ieyasu.

At Ozaka, notwithstanding Yodogima’s assurances, strange preparations were making for defence. No word had escaped her lips as to the taiko’s reception, or purpose in leaving, or intentions about returning. An ugly silence cast its spell over them, yet Hidetsugu, the kwambaku, made his jealousy against the newborn the more apparent by finally withdrawing to reside permanently at Fushima, and Ishida not at all thereby deceived, began forthwith the organizing of a new force no less to protect the taiko than to enforce the rights of Yodogima and her recently-born claimant to his lordship’s intended succession.

“Did you think me long gone, Yodogima?” inquired Hideyoshi, approaching her, at ease, and alone, in the great chamber, just off her own boudoir. “I was delayed no more against luck than strangely; Harunaga is here, now, in the castle: in fact, came with me.”

His words were wasted, for Yodogima at once arose to greet him, and never before did she seem quite as graceful; her hair, loose and massive, hung in wavelets far below her slender neck; the eyes fairly burned as before, softened only with a compassion new and compelling; a complexion yet bearing the undercast of an ordeal intensifying the more its naturally olive-like hue, that long flowing gown of silken white which Hideyoshi had longed to see, and a voice modulated with the sweetness of motherhood—the taiko believed her in truth a goddess, thence prostrated himself at the purport of her answer:

“You alone are welcome, Hideyoshi.”

“But the child, Yodogima?”

“Shall I present it?”