The house was full of music, inexpressibly dear and familiar. He started to his feet, trembling like one afflicted with ague. And gradually words, in a fairy language that he had learned to love, began to form themselves into the melody of a voice.

Slowly, painfully, like one led by unseen, subtle, persuasive hands, he went forward, and up and up the spiral stairs till he had reached her chamber, and there he stood, like one who has come far and can go no farther.

One other presence besides himself was within. This he knew, and still could not comprehend. He could see her plainly, just as she had been in life—her little, shining head, her dear, small hands, the long, blue, misty eyes, and the small mouth with the little pathetic droop that had come to it in the last few days they had been together. She stood with her hands raised, dreamily loitering before a mirror, putting cherry blossoms in her hair on either side of her head. But at the prolonged silence that ensued she turned slowly about, and then she saw the man standing silently in the doorway.

She was not a girl to scream or faint, but she went gray with fear, and stood perfectly still there in the middle of the room. Then gradually her eyes travelled upward to the man’s face, and there they remained transfixed.

For a long while they faced each other thus, both with hearts that seemed not to beat. Then the man made a movement towards her, a passionate, wild movement, and she had dropped the flowers from her hands, and had gone to meet him. The next moment he was crushing her to him. When he released her but a moment, it was to hold her again and yet again, as though he feared to find her gone, and his arms empty once more, as they had been for so long. He could only breathe her name—“Yuki! Yuki! My wife! My wife!”

Neither tried to explain. There was time enough for that. They were absorbed alone in the fact that they were together at last.

Some one noisily entered the house and whirled up the stairs. It was the American girl. She gazed in upon them with eyes and mouth agape in amazement.

“Well, I never!” she ejaculated, and went out and down the steps, sobbing aloud.

“Such a romance! Such a nice, big fellow, too! And, oh, dear me, I’ve lost her sure enough now forever! Bother men, anyhow!” and she jumped into Jack’s jinrikisha and bade the man take her on the instant to Tokyo.