“Why, something has affrighted the little one. Aré moshi, moshi. Well, she should not have followed the strangers. There, tell it all to the mother.”
She drew the trembling girl to the soft-padded floor and placed her arm reassuringly about her. But Hyacinth seized both her foster-mother’s hands and held them in a spasmodic, almost fierce, clasp.
“They going to come for me! Oh yes, yes. They will take me away. Oh, what can I do? What—They tell me—Oh-h—”
She broke down utterly, her throat choked with her sobs.
“Why, what does the little one mean?”
She could not respond. She clung to Aoi fearfully.
There were heavy, quick steps coming up the garden-path. Then a pause before the door. The next moment loud raps.
The young girl’s trembling fear communicated itself to Aoi, and the two now clung together fearfully, listening, with strained ears, to every sound. They heard the shuffling sound of Mumè’s feet in the hall, then the gruff, deep voices of the callers, and a few moments later the men were ushered into the guest-chamber of Madame Aoi.
Their mission was soon explained. They understood that seventeen years ago an American lady had died in her home, which was then in a village on the shore of the bay. She, Madame Aoi, they understood, had adopted the child, having failed to find the father. He, on his part, had only just succeeded in tracing the child’s whereabouts. It was believed that she, Madame Aoi, was still in possession of her.
Although Aoi made no denial, she made no admission. She looked at the girl she had brought up as her own child with dry eyes and quivering lips. The young girl looked back at her with piteous, imploring eyes. Aoi closed her lips and refused even to answer the strangers. But after a space the girl herself stepped towards them and, raising her face defiantly, said: