"That is true," he laughed.
"'I will come back at the first moment of opportunity, if I live, to my—wife!'"
He repeated this after her.
"Now go! The waiting will be ecstasy. Go! The sooner you go, the sooner you will return. I am not afraid. I am your wife. You have said it. Here or there, in the earths or the heavens! For all your lives—all, all! And I will be no other man's wife while I live! Or after death. And some day you shall have a son—like you in everything!—to keep the lamps alight when you are dead. For there will be for you a soldier's shrine. Now go or my heart will burst. And remember that in China or America or Germany I am your wife! But in Japan I am an eta—and you. Remember! Some day there will be a son, some day—soon!"
For if nothing else would bring him back, she thought this untrue promise would!
And so they parted—she pulling him back and pushing him off—there by the Sacred City he had helped to win—until she closed her eyes and clenched her hands and flung herself on the ground, face down, and would not touch or speak to him again. When he was out of sight she was sorry, and ran to the roof whence she could see the hills. There he was, walking between the two soldiers! And he turned because she so desperately wished him to—the gods made him do it, of this she was certain—and waved a hand to her; and with both of hers she sent after him all the blessings of the immortal gods.
"I will—I will be brave," she cried terribly to Isonna, who had said nothing. "I will be brave as he!"
"But how can we when all our life has gone yonder!"
And the maid sobbed in utter abandon.
"You love him too? You! Isonna, the savage, the eta, the man-hater! The declaimer against him, and me, and love! You! Oh, gods!"