had procured. It gave Koma a strange satisfaction—a warm delight. He stretched out his little limbs across the floor. He, too, was satisfied. All was now well. Gradually his head drooped backward and Komazawa fell into a slumber.

Within, the stranger was imparting bits of her history to the sympathetic Aoi. She was hardly conscious of her words, which were spoken through her semi-delirium. Her feverish eyes, wide open, shone up into the bending face of Aoi, and held the Japanese woman with their piteous appeal. She seemed soothed under the gentle touch of Aoi’s hand on her brow.

“Pray thee to sleep,” gently the Japanese woman persuaded her.

She was quiet a moment, only to start up the next.

“Nay,” entreated Aoi, “sleep first—to-morrow speak. Rest, I pray you.”

“It was so long, so long!” cried the woman on the bed, clasping her thin hands across those on her head. “And, oh, the pain, the agony of it all! I was so tired—so—”

Her body palpitated and quivered with the sighing sobs that shook her. She sprang up suddenly, pushing away from her the hands of Aoi, which gently attempted to restrain her.

“It was all wrong—quite wrong from the first. But what did they care? They had their wedding. Ah, I tell you, they are bad, all bad! Ah, it was cruel, cruel!”

“Ah,” thought Aoi, sadly; “she, too, has been pierced with anguish. Truly, my heart breaks in sympathy with her.”

She bent above the quivering woman, her pitying face close to hers.

“Pray thee, dear one, take rest and comfort,” she said, smoothing softly her brow.

“Ah, you are so good, so good,” said the sick woman. “You are not like those others—those fearful people.” She covered her eyes with her thin hands as if to shut out a vision of some horror. “God will bless you, bless you for your goodness to me,” she said.

Exhausted, she lay back among the pillows, her eyes closed. How grateful to her must have felt that great English bed, with its soft coverlets! For how many days had she wandered, without sight or word of her own people! Her thin, fine lips quivered unceasingly, while her blue eyes held a constant mist, seemingly haunted by some troubled spectre that pursued her ceaselessly.

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