Once she raised her hands feebly, then plucked at the coverlet with long, white fingers.

“What a death! oh, what a death!” she whispered, faintly.

After a long silence her voice raised itself to the pitch of one delirious.

“If I could see—” Her words came slowly and with difficulty, and she repeated them ramblingly. “If I could only see—a white face—a white—one of my own people. Oh, so long, and, oh me!—mamma, mamma!”

“Ah, dear lady,” said Aoi, “if you will but deign to rest I will go forth and endeavor to find some of your people. There are white people in the next town. It is not far—not very far, and perhaps, ah, surely, they will come to you.”

“My people,” the woman repeated. “No, no.” Her voice became hoarse. She started up in her bed. “You do not understand. I must never, never see them again. I could not bear it. They are cruel, wicked. No! Ah, you shall promise me—promise me.”

She fell back, exhausted from her transport of passion. Aoi knelt beside her and took her hands within her own.

“I will promise you whatever you wish, dear lady. Only speak your desires to me. I will humbly try to carry them out.”

The sick woman’s voice was so weak that she scarce could raise it above a whisper, but her words were plain.

“Promise me that you will not give them my little one when I am gone. You are good, and will be kind to her. Oh, will you not? I would not be happy, I could not rest in peace if she were sent to—to him.” Her words rambled off again. “I left him,” she said, “ran away—far away, far away, and the country was all strange to me, and I could not find my way. Every one stared at me; it must have been because I had gone mad, you know, quite mad. All women do. I wanted to put a great distance between us, to get beyond his sight—beyond the sound of his voice, beyond—”

“Ah, do not speak more,” entreated Aoi, now in tears.

“Why, you are crying!” said the sick woman, looking wistfully into Aoi’s face. She began to weep, weakly, impotently, herself.

After a time she became quieter. She started once again, when Aoi had snuffed a few of the lights, seeming to dread the darkness, but when the Japanese woman’s hands reassured her, she was again silent. And as she slept she still clung 

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