HE Lady Wistaria was carried to her father’s home at night. There was no gorgeous cortège, no gayly bedecked attendants or retainers to bend the back and knee to her. She travelled alone, in a covered palanquin borne on the shoulders of hired runners, beside whom the tall, lank figure of her father strode. They set her down in the heart of the city, the rest of the journey being made on foot. When she had last visited her father’s home he had carried her on his back, after he had dismissed the palanquin, for she was then but a small girl of ten. Now she walked silently, dumbly, by his side. As they reached and passed through the silent little village that had impressed her as a child, strange fancies flitted in and out of Wistaria’s mind. There was none of that strange up-leaping of the heart, experienced on returning to a home not seen for years. The old mystic horror and fear of the place had taken possession of Wistaria, but now, with a woman’s wide-open eyes, her wonder and fear began to form themselves into vague fancies.
Slowly passing along the silent, spiral streets, climbing up and around hillock after hillock, they came finally before the small, whitewashed house with its dark, empty, cold interior. The old, old woman who had fondled and sung to the child Wistaria came hobbling and mumbling to the door. She wept over Wistaria’s hands, caressed them, and drew her head to her bosom with a crooning laugh that was almost a sob.
“I am very weary and would fain retire at once,” said Wistaria, as she returned the old woman’s caress.
Madame Mume attended Wistaria tenderly towards the stairway which led to the upper part of the house. But, as she did so, Shimadzu called to his daughter in his hollow voice of command.
“Stay,” he said. “I have much to say to you to-night.”
Bowing obediently, if wearily, to her father, Wistaria handed her cape to the old woman and mechanically followed him into the ozashiki.
“My daughter,” began the father, “do you know where you now are?”
This strange question surprised Wistaria, but she replied, with a gentle smile:
“In my honorable father’s house.”
“That is true, but do you know where your father’s house is situated?”