Not in the sneering tone she had turned upon the hapless Moonlight, but with the deepest earnestness, she now besought her daughter-in-law daily to lavish costly offerings at the shrines, and even to drink of the Kiyomidzu springs! As became a dutiful daughter, the once smiling, taunting Ohano joined that same melancholy group where once the unhappy Moonlight had been a familiar figure.
Thus the tragic months passed away. Few if any words now passed between the Saito women. A wall seemed to have arisen between them. Where previously the older woman had felt for Ohano an affection almost equivalent to that of a mother, she now turned wearily from the girl’s timid effort to appease her. Unlike, however, her treatment of the Spider, she at least spared the young wife the harsh, nagging, condemnatory words of reproach and recrimination.
Every morning the selfsame question was asked and answered:
“You were at Kiyomidzu yesterday, my daughter?”
“Hé, honorable mother.”
“And—?”
“The gods are obdurate, alas!”
Lady Saito would mechanically knock out the ash from her pipe and refill it with her trembling fingers. Then, shaking her head, she would mutter:
“From the decree of heaven there is no escape!”