At last, Asako said helplessly: "Is he dead?"
The cook, a man, was glad of the opportunity to escape.
"I go and call doctor," he said.
"No, stay with me," said Asako; "I am afraid. O Hana can go for the doctor."
Asako and the cook waited by the open shoji, staring blankly at the body of Ito. Presently the cook said that he must go and get something. He did not return. Asako called to him to come. There was no answer. She went to look for him in his little three-mat room near the kitchen. It was empty. He had packed his few chattels in his wicker basket and had decamped.
Asako resumed her watch at the sitting-room door, an unwilling Rizpah. It was as though she feared that, if she left her post, somebody might come in and steal Ito. But she could have hardly approached the corpse even under compulsion. Sometimes it seemed to move, to try to rise; but it was stuck fast to the matting by the resinous flow of purple blood. Sometimes it seemed to speak:
"Mistletoe! Mistletoe! Kiss me, Asa San!"
Gusts of cold wind came in from the open windows, touching the dead man curiously, turning over his kimono sleeves. Outside, the bamboo grove was rattling like bones; and the caked snow fell from the roof in heavy thuds.
* * * * *
O Hana returned with a doctor and a policeman. The doctor loosened
Ito's kimono, and at once shook his head.