Mistress of the situation, she calmly fed up the wick in the oil, and looked down into the woman’s face. Presumably because of blood having been sent up to the head upon strangling, her complexion looked fresh and pretty as in life. An expression of agony that lingered over her features appeared as if it trailed into the whisper of a mirthful grin. Her eyes fixed in a soulless glare on the ceiling were the only objects of grim terror.
“There is the boat all ready, out there. We’ll take this carcass along and sink it down, somewhere in the offing.—Now, about money, here is what I’ve raked up—.” Seiji almost dropped before her a weighty looking bag of straw matting, in which there was five hundred “ryo” in gold pieces, he explained. In this moment, the door at the kitchen entrance was noiselessly opened for a second time; Shinsuké stole in.
“Seiji san, my greetings to you after such a long time. I’m obliged to you for all that you’ve been doing for my Tsuya.”
“What? You Shinsuké san?”
Seiji’s face instantly paled. Before his eyes loomed forth a man, now uncovered of the hand towel in which he had come concealing his face, dressed in a light thing of blue and white, a sash of blue stripes, his glossy hair combed fresh and neat. Though now presented in the attire of loud colours and garish patterns, much after the taste of a sporting man, it was no other than Shinsuké himself.
“You said it right. I’m the same Shinsuké, at your service;—though, perhaps, a thing or two wiser than when you used to know me. And be it my pleasure to report to you that both your wife and Santa were killed at my hands.”
A brief altercation led straightway to a scuffle. Without a weapon at hand, Sejii was soon at bay. Tsuya’s arm swiftly shot out from behind his back, and clapped fast over his mouth about to cry for help. Shinsuké was given sufficient time to complete his work.
The bag of five hundred “ryo” that they brought back from this sally was lavished in their orgies of reckless abandon, and cleaned out toward the close of the same year. Their hideous love had now spanned over a full year’s time.
“I really wish something nice were drifting our way soon, or we’ll be wishing each other a pretty sorry sort of New Year!” They would oft whisper between them in such complaint of fortune, as it kept sinking lower and lower. However, there was nothing forthcoming to bring them a smile or a windfall. There was but one course to be reckoned with, and Tsuya followed it with a vengeance. She brought into play the best that was in her against the men answering to her siren call, and her terms of capitulation were of relentless rigor.
The love of Shinsuké for her grew more intense, as he sped farther downward. Her explanation that she had been “at the old game again” was good enough as far as it went; but, some nights when her return home was late, he would strike out into expression of his mind tinged with veiled mistrust, and chafing with jealous fears.