Keiki fell into a delicious, dreamless slumber. Beside him, her arms supporting against her bosom the weight of his head, Wistaria knelt, unmoving, for the space of an hour. Her eyes had that strange, brooding, guarding expression of the mother.
Some one tapped with the lightness of a child upon the fusuma. Wistaria tightened her arms about her lover. Her face became strained and rigid. Her eyes enlarged with mingled terror and savage defiance.
The tapping was repeated. Still she made no response. There was an interval of silence. Then the sliding door was softly pushed aside. Some one entered the room, and stood against the wall looking down at the little, silent figure with its face of appealing, helpless agony. The next moment the samurai Genji was kneeling beside Wistaria.
For a moment she could not speak, so intense were her mingled emotions. She had thought herself bereft of all friends on earth. In her father and aunt she could see nothing but menacing enemies who had assumed the dark guise of fiends. Yet here was Genji—Genji, her own, big samurai—whose very presence brought a sense of safety and repose. A strange little laugh, half a strangled sob, struggled through her lips.
In one glance Genji saw that the weight of the Prince in her slender arms was benumbing them. Without a word he lifted the sleeping Prince in his own arms and put him gently back upon the padded robe which served as his couch. Then turning to his mistress he half assisted her, half lifted her, to her feet. For a moment she leaned against him, dizzy with weakness.
In a broken, piteous, helpless fashion she began to cry against his breast, the pent-up anguish of many days finding its outlet.
Genji gently led her across the room, beyond the possible awakening of the Prince. His big voice, hushed to a whisper despite its huskiness, was as soothing as a mother’s.
“Aré moshi! See, the big Gen is here. All is well! Very well!”
“Oh, Gen!” she sobbed, “I do not know what to do!”
“Do? Why, we must cease to weep, so we may have the strength to minister to the sick.”