“For myself I have no fear,” he said.
“Why nod leave me now?” she urged. “Go bag alone down those mountain. No one speag hard to you who so moch mek respect. Wiz me there is moch trobble, an’ mebbe worse!”
“Without you,” he said, “there is more trouble, and a deep pain—an aching void that could never again be filled. With you here alone, cut off from all the world, holding your little hands in my own, looking into your face, why, even facing death, I am content—happier than I had ever dreamed it possible to be.”
“Thas beautiful word you speag,” she said. “Bud if the gods—”
She folded her hands across her breast and closed her eyes in prayer.
“Temmei itashikata kore maku!” she whispered lowly. (From the decree of heaven there is no escape.)
XXIV
The rapping on the temple doors was not loud or menacing, but it was insistent, questioning. The Tojin-san drew the fox-woman to the winding staircase which led up the seven stories to the tower above.
Once before Tama had been sent up yonder. Then she had gone willingly, even frantically. Now she made no movement up the stairs. Instead, she turned her back upon them, and faced the Tojin fairly. Upon her face a smile shone luminously as a star. Simply, steadily, she laid her hands in those of the man.