How was it possible for him, after all these years, to come, as he now had come, once more to this place of which she had always been a part, and with which she had always been lovingly associated in his mind, and not be filled with emotions that rent his heart. She had been his inspiration and all the world to him.

He remembered how they would drift around in their tiny boat, and she, little autocrat, would perch before him, her eyes dancing and shining, while he told her the story of the fisher-boy Urashima and his bride, the daughter of the dragon king. And when he would finish, for the hundredth time, perhaps, she would say, “See, Taro-sama, I am the princess, and you the fisher-boy. We are sailing, sailing, sailing on the sea ‘where Summer never dies,’” and he, to please her fancy, drifted on and on with her, around and around the little pond, until the sun began to sink in the west and the little mother would call them in-doors.

Now the monotonous drip, drip, drip of the rain-drops as they plashed from the weeping willow-trees that surrounded the tiny lake, fell upon its dull surface with mournful sound. Taro groaned again.

When he had knocked loudly a man came shuffling round from the rear of the house, and, in reply to his inquiry for Madam Omatsu, informed him gruffly that she had retired.

It did not matter; he must awaken her, Taro, who had found voice, told him with such insistence that the servant fled ignominiously to obey him. They waited for some time, out in the melancholy night. There was no sound from within the house. Taro hammered on the door once more. Then a faint light appeared from a window close by the door, and the man’s head showed again. He begged their honorable patience. He would open in a fraction of a second. He was very humble and servile now, and, as he admitted them, backed before them, bowing and bobbing at every step, for his mistress’s entire household had been taught to treat foreigners with the greatest deference and respect.

“Go to your mistress,” said Taro, briefly, “and tell her that her son desires to see her at once.”

There was immediately a fluttering at the other side of the shoji. Taro saw an eye withdraw from a hole. There were a few minutes of silence, and then the shoji parted and a woman entered the room. Her mother-love must have prompted her to rush into the arms of her son, for she had not seen him in five years, but, whatever her emotions, she skilfully concealed them, for the paltry reason that her son was accompanied by a stranger, an honorable foreign friend; and it behooved her to affect the finest manners. Consequently she prostrated herself gracefully, bowing and bowing, until Taro strode rapidly over to her and lifted her to her feet.

She was quite pretty and very gentle and graceful. Her face, oval in contour, was smooth and unwrinkled as a girl’s, for Japanese women age slowly. It was hard to believe she was the mother of the tall man now holding her at arm’s length and looking down at her with such deep, questioning eyes.

“Where is my sister, Yuki?” he demanded, hoarsely.

“Yuki?” Madam Omatsu smiled with saintly confidence. She had retired. Would they pray wait till morning? Ah, how was her honorable son, her august offspring? She began fondling her boy now, stroking his face, standing on tiptoe to kiss it, ecstatically smoothing and caressing his hands, feeling his strange clothes, and laughing joyously at their likeness to those of her dead husband’s. But the dark shadow on Taro’s face was deepening, nor would he return or submit to his mother’s caresses till his fears regarding his sister were stilled.