Dazedly, almost blindly, Azalea made her way down the hill slope, across the little bridge that spanned the narrow river in the valley below, up another hill, and on through the fields. She had come to the house of her step-mother. At least she had never been denied a roof there.
Her knock was timid and faint. As though expecting her, Madame Yamada hastened to the door. Azalea spoke in the weariest, the faintest of accents.
“Excellent mother-in-law, my house has fallen and I am without money and very tired. I wish to come into my father’s house a little while.”
Madame Yamada laughed shrilly.
“The doors of your father’s house,” she said, “are closed to the one who has dishonored them.”
Azalea stood in silence. Even in her misery, her pride withheld her from pleading. She bowed her head in apathetic politeness.
“Say no more, then,” she said. “We will go elsewhere.”
“The shadows of the night were her only covering, and the soft, mossy grass her mattress.”
(Page [166])
That night she slept under the open skies. The shadows of the night were her only covering, and the soft, mossy grass her mattress. She slept well, as the exhausted often do, and felt nor knew the discomfort of her unusual bed, for she was close to the ruin of her home that had been, and near, too, to the little mission house. Her last thought ere she slept was a vague and almost childish remembrance of an argument she had once had with her husband. She had protested against the locking of the mission house, declaring that locks were unknown and unneeded in Japan. He had insisted that thieves might enter the place and despoil the little church of its few possessions. Now Azalea thought with a strange feeling of bitter triumph that she had proved herself right. Oh, if the little church were but open, what a haven of refuge it would prove now for her and for their child. Who had better right to its protection than the wife and offspring of the priest of the church?