For an instant the young man stared. Slowly his face grew white. He gave one glance of concentrated love, pain, and resentment, and then passed, without a word, along the edge of the veranda, and under the out-leaning plum-tree. Yuki, watching him with a dying heart, felt that never again could she look upon her favorite tree without seeing that fair, bowed head beneath the branches. Mrs. Todd gaped, incredulous, at the girl. Gwendolen alone realized the situation. She sprang to her feet instantly. "Mother!" she cried, "the young man came for us, of course. We have trespassed too long on Mrs. Onda's hospitality; now let us join our unfortunate visitor at the gate and have him ride home with us, I have something of importance to say to him." Yuki gave a little sob of gratitude and relief. Mrs. Todd, partly comprehending, heaved upward to her feet. "Yes," she said to Gwendolen, but with a disapproving glance poured, full-measure, upon the Japanese girl, "let us ask him to ride home. The poor fellow looked as if the earth had crumbled under his feet." Yuki felt the reproach. She could have laughed aloud at the irony of it. Mrs. Todd walked in what she supposed a stately fashion across the room. Her feet pressed into the soft matting as into a stiff dough, leaving behind her a track of shallow indentations. At parting Gwendolen whispered in her friend's ear, "I understood. Your father has been watching all along. I will make things clear to the other." When the panelled gate was closed once more, and the little bell cold after long reverberation, Yuki felt a great physical shudder. Her nerves demanded of her the respite of tears, but still she held herself in check. The luxury of weeping and the hidden letter alike must wait until a night hour when the rest of the house was asleep. She went out into the sunshine of the garden, well within sight of the house. She tried not to think, or to allow forebodings. Against the old plum-tree she leaned, catching idly the white drifting petals. Each might have been a separate poem, so freighted is Japanese lore with fancies and exquisite imagery drawn from this favorite flower. The transience of life, its sweetness, fidelity to natural law, wifehood and womanly tenderness, rebirth, immortality,--all these thoughts and more came to her softly as the petals came. Through each mood, like the clang and clash of brass through low melody, recurred the vision of Pierre--of his yellow hair beneath the old plum-tree. But with the petals fell uncounted moments, heaped less tangibly into hours. So passed the day and succeeding days. CHAPTER ELEVEN The short interval between the Todds' visit and Prince Hagané's banquet was wrought, within the confines of the Onda home, of small, shifting particles of disquiet, discontent, despondency,--a sort of mist that kept the spirit dark and chill.