Yuki hurried along the intricate paths toward the house. Dry sobs rose one after another slowly, coming relentlessly upward in her slender throat with a distention that grew to agony. "I must not stop to think, I cannot give up now," she panted. "O Kwannon Sama, what am I to do?" This black hour, like some dark chemical, was turning the memory of all other grief to light. The one conscious thought which her mind hugged jealously was Pierre's necessity for medicine. Fortunately, she knew a little of this, and kept a well-filled chest. His fever was terrific. Human pity demanded that she first allay this raving torment of the blood before delivering him to cold officials, or even to Count Ronsard of the French Legation. Her thoughts and plans in this present bewilderment could get no further than the fever-draught now to be given the sick man. With shaking hands she prepared it, and then a second drink, a powerful sleeping-potion. She got back to him as noiselessly as she had come. Apparently no one had seen her. Pierre was now in actual fever-madness. He had thrown coat, waistcoat, and watch in various parts of the room. The cushions were strewn wide. A corner of one rested in hibachi ashes. In one of his hands he clasped tightly the half of a long ivory hairpin.
With the patience of a mother and the ingenuity of a wife she coaxed him, at length, into swallowing one of the draughts. He did not demand the promised kisses. He did not know her now, or, rather, the recognitions came in short flashes, like heat lightning. Sometimes he took her to be Gwendolen and accused her angrily of connivance with Haganè and the ambitious Onda family. Again he thought her the German head physician and raved of his wrongs. He passed rapidly from one language to the other, essaying at times his broken Japanese. It was generally in English that he denounced his faithless sweetheart, and the epithets directed against her caused Yuki's heart to sink with shame,—not for herself, but for him.
A longer interval of sanity came. He recognized his companion with piteous little cries and tears of joy. He believed that at last they were married, and prattled on of the long, happy future, of their little home in France, until Yuki, having come for the moment to the end of suffering's capacity, listened with a dreary smile and dull ears.
The second draught, the sleeping-potion, was to be given in half an hour. Through that interminable time she waited, his head upon her aching knees, his fevered hands reaching ever for her face, her shoulder, until lethargy alone saved her from an answering insanity. The plan was half formed in her dull thoughts to administer this potion, then, when slumber overcame him, to close the shoji, and leave Pierre to sleep away the fiercest fever while she could think out a way of getting him from the garden. But for the political meeting, falling so strangely on this very day, the situation would have possessed no great peril. It would have been merely a sick man who, in delirium, had wandered unknowingly into Haganè's garden. The servants might have found him; Ronsard have been telephoned for, and Prince Haganè himself asked what was best to do. This was what might have been; but here was the matter as it really lay. A Frenchman, and attaché of the Legation,—ill or well no less a Frenchman—concealed in Haganè's garden, sheltered and protected by Haganè's young wife! Yuki gave a convulsive shudder. The sick man gasped, and clutched the air as if he thought himself falling from a height. Fate smiled a thin, hard smile down into Yuki's eyes.
The girl did not resent Fate's prophetic stare. Already she knew herself trapped. Her wild thoughts had run since the beginning of eternity in this same ring of fire. There was time for nothing. The one frail chance was that Pierre should sleep on through the meeting undiscovered. Already twelve o'clock had come. From the high land near the samurai Onda's home, a big bell boomed and quivered out over the city. The echoes stirred and shifted tranquil layers of the noon. Fear sank down like soot upon a crouching woman with the sick man on her knees.
Pierre, for some moments past, had gradually ceased the restless tossing of his head, and was forgetting to utter short, disjointed words. The fair hair, that had been so stiff and dry, clung now in moist locks about his temple. His delicate hands ceased twitching and picking at Yuki's gown, and fell over limply on the floor. Caught loosely in the right hand lay the broken hairpin. To any Japanese, of any class, this would be fatal evidence. Under her fairy-like touch he gave a start, clutched more firmly at the pin she was trying to take, and threw his hand upward above his heart. Again Fate smiled, and Yuki bowed her head. Now a soft, regular breathing began. The healing sleep was on the sufferer. His face was growing young and gentle. Yuki stared down into it, tearless. Her heart, like some living entity beaten and tortured too long, had lost the power of sensitive response. There was only a dull, incessant aching that was becoming, already, an acknowledged part of her.
He was safe. To-day's crisis, at least of the devouring heat, was over. He would awake refreshed and clear. As for her, everything had grown so vague and far-away she cared very little what might happen. The insensibility of reaction bore her outward on a warm tide. Danger lost its meaning, and grew but a shadow-play on life. A Frenchman in Haganè's garden, and a crucial meeting to go on in the house! There was something piquant, fetching, in the idea. Yuki nodded above it and smiled. Oh, she was so tired, so tired of everything! A little malicious something was tapping, tapping, just at the base of her brain. The ache at her heart benumbed her. A desire, dull and insistent as the pain itself, crept to her, just to lie upon the matting near poor Pierre and rest. They belonged together, the weak ones. Chance and disappointment had thrown them about like toys. What had such as they to do with the God Haganè? Yes, she had better fail once more, and it would be the last. Let the grave statesmen come and go, let Haganè seek her! She had nothing to do but the easiest of all things, just to do nothing, and all this benumbing misery would be at an end.
She wondered, still smiling, in what way Haganè would kill her. She fingered curiously the stops of a dozen fearful thoughts, and felt no fear. Had law permitted him to carry the two swords of his class, the short one would deal a quick and merciful death. Since he was unarmed perhaps he would simply let one of the servants slay her, not caring to soil his hands with such feeble stains.
An influence was coming over her in rhythms, like tepid waves. A delicious lightness blew upon her brain. She gasped for insensibility as for music, dumb, perfumed music, drunk in by pores of the flesh. One small nerve of desire began to tingle. "Oh, let it go on," she cried to her soul; "have no interference! Let me pass into nothingness by this heavenly gliding!"
As from a great distance came footsteps and the sound of commonplace voices. Yuki moaned aloud, and crept an inch nearer her companion.