Physical strength crept back into her wasted body, bringing health, too, to her bewildered mind. Memory—burning, invincible, accusing—awoke, told her that she was about to become a thing more outcast than ever, because she would be guilty of that sin the most unpardonable of any a woman of his (her husband’s) people could commit. She could not delude herself with the fancy that she would be the wife of Matsuda Isami, whatever the law might be, for she had pledged an eternal faith to her true husband and the child was the connecting link between them. Now as from day to day she waited in fear for the time to come when Matsuda Isami should claim her promise, a promise she dared not break if she would keep her child, there flooded back upon her the teachings of her husband. Now at last she knew she believed in the faith of the Kirishitan and before that faith she stood convicted. She did not attempt to justify her actions by her sufferings. There was no justification in the creed of his religion. His last words to her had been: “Have faith always. Be true to me, my love, and to yourself. I will return.” Yet how had he kept his word to her. There had not come to her one word or sign since his departure. If he had sent word to her the great waters that divided them must have swallowed it up. There was nothing left to her now save the child, and for his sake she would sell herself and become wife to Matsuda Isami.
CHAPTER XIV
Patience is not always an enduring virtue. That of Richard Verley had long since evaporated. Waiting, with a faith excelled only by that of the one in Japan, for word from his wife, his stay in America had become unbearable.
At first he had thought her failure to answer his letters due to mistakes she might make in addressing him. He recalled how, when teaching her to write his address, she had continually forgotten to put the name of the city or State. She was quite sure that everyone in the United States must know him. But as time passed, he knew this could not be the reason. His letters urging her to answer at once, and giving explicit instructions as to address, received no response. He thought of her condition and became alarmed.
When finally, refusing to wait longer, and leaving his duties unfinished, he took ship for Japan, he was in an agony of bewilderment and apprehension. If anything had happened to her! Illness, the possible premature birth of the child, when she would be too helpless and ill to write. How foolish he had been not to have arranged communication with her through a third party. And yet, who could he have called upon for such a service? He thought of her outcast position since becoming his wife; of the eccentric and stubborn fears that had impelled her to remain in Japan. And then an overwhelming sense of regret overpowered him, that he had left her at all. His place was by her side. His first duty belonged to her! There had been a flaw in his former reasoning. His service to the Master could have been better subserved than the way he had chosen.
So, with his mind sick with gloomy forebodings, his conscience and heart aching, Richard Verley returned to Japan. He hurried from Tokyo in a fever of impatience to the little town of Sanyo. The journey was interminable—intolerable! For the first time in his life the gentle-natured Richard Verley fretted and upbraided those who served him. The runners crept! Their vehicles were ancient and broken down. The conductors of the miserable trains were responsible for the creeping of the train. Some one was responsible! Everything was wrong! Most of his journey, besides, was made by the slow method of kurumma. Sometimes, unable to bear it, he would get out from the kurumma and plunge ahead himself on foot. Every step, every moment that brought him nearer to her, but added to his sick premonitions. All was not well with her! Something dire had overtaken her. He dared not imagine what that might be.
When he touched the town at last, he did not wait a minute, but without noticing the townspeople, who regarded him curiously, he hastened on toward where had stood his home.
The sight that met him when he reached the place staggered him. He looked about him dazed, as one who sees with unseeing eyes. He could not understand. Something was wrong with his sight—his head, he told himself. Where once had stood the little flower-embowered home, there was nothing but a heap of broken planks and debris, the melancholy debris of a fallen house.