No, she had not heard him calling her, nor had she called him. This, too, was part of the dream; but something louder than any human cry had reached her in her hiding-place in the mountains, the intuitive, certain sense of the blind. She had retraced her steps down the mountain-side, and had gone cautiously seeking in the woods for him; and the gods had guided her aright. Ah! to his very feet.
She humbly begged him to pardon her for leaving him; but she had thought this was the only way she could save him from those who hated her. Now—now she wished to repeat the prayer and promise she had made him down in the old Shiro. Never again would she desert him. She would always abide by his side. She humbly entreated that he would permit her to remain with him, even if she must follow him throughout the world as a slave, the meekest and lowliest of servants.
He did not reply, so obsessed was he still with the vision of her loveliness. Throughout the golden afternoon he lay there watching her every little movement, her slightest change of expression; thrilling under the touch of her hands, the sound of her voice; obeying her slightest request; permitting her to serve him as if he were a babe and she his mother.
Gradually the murmuring of the crickets in the grass, the soft chirping of the birds, even the babbling of the brook, the sighing of the gentle breezes seemed to soften their tone to one concerted murmuring lullaby. A veil crept gently over the sky, shutting out the sun and its light.
She put a pillow of pine needles beneath his head, and she covered him over with a downy, silken mantle that smelled of temple incense and was gorgeous beyond words with the golden embroidery of some sacred order.
And presently as he drowsed deliciously under the warm fragrant silk, he felt her stirring at his feet, and her tired little voice came whispering to him as if from very far away:
“Sayonara, Tojin-san! Imadzuka!” (Now we rest).
