Hagané raised his head. The delay puzzled him. He had been examining again the crimson seal. The look on his wife's face, come with such terrific suddenness, sent something almost like fear through his heart. He thrust the paper in his breast, and turned to scan the room. Pierre was in the safe shelter of the columnar, massed portiére. Yuki clawed and mowed her way through a jungle of fire toward her lord. "Master, master!" she whispered hoarsely. She could say no more, and fell prone on her knees before him, reaching upward for his grasp. "What ails you, child? In the name of Shaka, what has hurt you?" He bent to raise her, but she grovelled, eluding his hands. "I am ill, very ill; let us go quickly to our chamber," she managed to choke out. Now she fluttered backward, luring him, like a wounded bird, her long, gray sleeves trailing after. "In Shaka's name!" he cried again, "I cannot understand the suddenness." Pierre now left the portiére, and stole softly toward the bent back of the prince. Yuki thought him mad, with a new strength and cunning of murderous intent. She sprang up to her feet, hurling all her slight weight against Hagané with such force that he swerved. With a movement like light she had passed him, set her back to his, and was facing Pierre. "Here--here--kill me--not him--" she panted. "I am ready; I do not fear. See how white my breast and soft! Oh, blood will look so pretty here,--like the red seal!" She tore aside the dove-gray folds of her gown. Hagané, wheeling to them, half drew the paper from his breast. The Frenchman saw, and as Hagané turned, lowered his head so that his face might still be hidden, reached out a hand, and, with one demon-directed dart of the nervous fingers had touched, had clutched, had wrenched away the long white screed of fate that bore a single drop of blood. For one awful crash of time, the solid earth split beneath the statesman's feet. Pierre had gone through the low window like a breeze, and his flying track through the shrubs stirred them scarcely more. Hagané staggered as his mind confirmed this strange, annihilating loss. A moment more and he was again calm master of his fate. He took Yuki by a shoulder, held her from him, and scorching her eyes with the scorn of his, said steadily, "So this is what ailed you, Princess Hagané! Why did you give no warning? Tell me the name of the thief." Yuki blinked and moved her head backward and forward through the air. She put up a hand to her throat of cork, and smoothed it. "Answer me, Yuki, who was that man?" She did not answer. Suddenly she sagged to his feet, wrapping her long gray sleeves about his ankles. "Oh, Master, do not kill him! He is a very sick person, yes! I will get the paper for you, Lord. I will get it for you, I will get it!" she chattered in English. Why, at this central crisis of her life, she should have spoken English to a Japanese was something that she never understood.