"But where can I go?" Asako asked helplessly.
"Ladyship has pretty house by river brink," suggested Tanaka. "Ladyship can stay two month, three month. Then the springtime come and Ladyship feel quite happy again. Even I, in the winter season, I find the mind very distress. It is often so."
To be alone, to be free from the daily insults and cruelty; this in itself would be happiness to Asako.
"But will Mr. Fujinami allow me to go?" she asked, timorously.
"Ladyship must be brave," said the counselor. "Ladyship is not prisoner. Ladyship must say, I go. But perhaps I can arrange matter for Ladyship."
"Oh, Tanaka, please, please do. I'm so unhappy here."
"I will hire cook and maid for Ladyship. I myself will be seneschal!"
Mr. Fujinami Gentaro and his family were delighted to hear that their plan was working so smoothly, and that they could so easily get rid of their embarrassing cousin. The "seneschal" was instructed at once to see about arrangements for the house, which had not been lived in since its new tenancy.
Next evening, when Asako had spread the two quilts on the golden matting, when she had lit the rushlight in the square andon, when the two girls were lying side by side under the heavy wadded bedclothes, Sadako said to her cousin:
"Asa Chan, I do not think you like me now as much as you used to like me."