Madame Yamada’s voice was as hard as her face.
“So you have returned!” she said. “You are without shame, it seems. This is the house of respectable people. The Kirishitan cannot enter.”
“Kirishitan—Kirishitan!” Azalea repeated the word vaguely, dazedly. “I am not Kirishitan,” she said. “The gods——”
Madame Yamada’s shrill laugh interrupted her.
“What! And you carry the evil book in the front of your obi!”
“That!” Azalea dragged the book from her obi. She held it up with both hands, then with a sudden, wild vehemence dashed it to the ground and put her foot upon it.
“It has brought me evil. Good step-mother, I have cast it from me. Give me shelter,” and she stretched her hands out in piteous appeal. But only the blank wall of shoji faced her now. Madame Yamada and her daughters had closed the doors upon her, even as she renounced her religion.
In a frenzy she beat with her thin hands upon the panelling, and her moaning voice reached those within.
“Oh, hearts of stone, take then the child within. It is dying! dying!”
Her step-mother thrust her fist through the paper shoji. One baleful eye was placed at the opening. But she did not speak.