Part 22

“’Tis but the dew upon my face,” she said, but her own trembling voice broke the spell of anguished waiting. At the foot of the drooping bamboo she slipped to the earth, and crouched beneath the shadow, deaf now to all sounds, save her own inward heart cries and the tears which even she could not command to cease.

Yet after only a little while, one appeared at the bamboo gate, vaulted quickly over it, and came with running feet on toward the grove. A moment later, Sado-ko was in the arms of her lover.

“Oh, is it you—you!” she said through her sighs, “at last. Oh, at last you have come!”

“It is I, sweet Sado-ko.”

“So late!” she said, her breath caught by her sobs.

“Yes, late,” he said, “but it was not the fault of Junzo.”

“I kept the tryst,” she said, “and waited long for the moon to rise—and then—then you did not come, and I—and then I wept.”

She turned her face toward a moonbeam streaming through the grove that he might see the glistening tears.

“Sado-ko!” he cried in an agony, “oh, that I should cause you pain—I who would sell my very soul to save you from a tear.”

She had recovered somewhat of her natural calm, and for a moment her old bright self shone out.

“Nay, then, and what is a little tear? So slight a thing—see, I will wipe it away with the sleeve of my Junzo.”

“My lotos maiden! O Sado-ko, I have made enemies for you here in this very palace.”

“But I am stronger than the enemies, my Junzo. Indeed, I can afford to laugh at them.”

“One—the Lady Fuji, do not trust her, I beseech you, Sado-ko.”

“She would become wife to my father,” said Sado-ko, with quiet scorn, “yet her power is small and her hope vain.”

“She tried to prevent my coming here to-night. I fear she has suspected our tryst.”

“Lady Fuji-no is wise. Were I to marry soon the Prince Komatzu, her fortunes would change. She would possibly be out of service, and knows or thinks my father would befriend her.”

“There are still others. I fear the Duchess Aoi has no love for you or me.”

“She has love for only one besides herself,—the Prince Komatzu. She could much better herself in his graces, could she betray Sado-ko in some base act.”

“And baseness is not possible in Sado-ko,” he said.

Her little hands moved softly across his breast and upon his arms.

“You are truly here, my Junzo,” she said, “I do not dream.”

“Hark, something is stirring close by!”

“The wind,” she said. “Pray you, be not fearful of the wind.”

“It seemed a sound more human-like, as of one who crept along the grove.”

“Perchance a deer. The parks are fully stocked, and many wander hither to my own private gardens.”

He raised her face upward between his hands, within which he framed it.

“Listen, Sado-ko. Do you forget that we made this tryst to-night for a sad purpose?”