“You told me once there was a tale that you would tell me.”
With an impetuous motion he once again seized her hands.
“You are too good, too pure to hear the story of one both false and base.”
In the strangest, most piteous of voices she answered:—
“Perhaps there was another time when you called her by another name.”
Her strange words rendered him quite speechless. She put her hand upon his arm. There was a pleading quality in her voice:—
“Junzo, do not think or speak unkindly of poor Sado-ko,” she said.
He repeated the name in a low, despairing voice:—
“Sado-ko!”
The very name recalled his anguish of the past.