"Yuki, Yuki, you have ruined my life! You have killed my soul! I cannot consent to live unless to revenge myself upon the man who has brought us both this agony!" "Pierre, if you say such thing, I must--because I am now Japanese wife--warn my master of it." This new affront to vanity stung Pierre back into some of his assumed relentlessness. "You would defend him,--betray me already? Count Ronsard said it would be so, but I would not listen. Why should you be true to him when you were false as hell to me? I'll kill him, I tell you, and if I cannot kill him in open fight, I will find some way to harm him! I'll have you yet, Madame la Princesse. I do not give you up, even at your own words. You owe me something! Come, come, you owe me reparation,--help me trick him, Yuki. You love me,--ah, I know it! This is my first triumph, that your heart cannot forget. Yes, yes, poor shivering slave, it is Pierre you love. Now, come, deny it! When his arms are around you, do you not think of mine? When his thick lips press you, do you not faint for me? Ah, I have touched you!" "Go--I say to you again, go, and go quickly! You with your own speech cauterize my wound. You are a coward! Your words are vipers which give their deepest venom first to you!" In speaking the girl had drawn herself very erect. Her face, through the twilight, gleamed luminous with inner fire. Over her left shoulder the open mouth of the dragon yawned. Pierre could not meet her look. He cowered back, and pressed his eyes with one trembling hand. "Yuki, Yuki, indeed I scarcely know what I am saying. This misery bewilders me. I cannot eat or sleep. My thoughts surge in my brain like fire in a battened ship. And this is worst of all, that now, so soon, you are tamed,--half reconciled! You have not loved me!" "If I love or not love, I must not now remember. Pierre, pity me a little. Go from Nippon; help me to be the good woman, and the loyal one." But to this appeal Pierre could not reach. "I do not give you up," he muttered sullenly. "And I will harm Hagané when and how I can!" Yuki stepped forward a little, still keeping one hand on the dragon. "Then stand aside, Monsieur Le Beau. I must return." Pierre did not move. "You shall not go," he said in the same sullen fashion. Yuki cast a despairing glance over toward the small house where the old priest lived, then down the long stone walk, now white with petals. No one was in sight. She gave a heavy sigh. On the instant the sound of Japanese clogs came, mounting, apparently, the stone steps of the great red gate. A form of a man in Japanese robes, unusually tall for his race, slow and majestic in approach, now became visible. "Hagané!" she said, with a great repressed cry, and bit her lips to keep from sobbing.