Through Yuki's troubled sleep came the sounds of vehicles rattling on foreign streets, and the blurred chime of church-bells. Her first conscious thought was, "It is Sunday. Gwendolen and I must be sure to go to service." The wooden amado of the house chattered with fright. The wind gave long, derisive howls as it swept under the low-hanging roof, clutched and shook the rafters, and then darted out to the heart of the storm once more. Yuki realized slowly that she was not in America at all, that she was at home, in Tokio. With a slower, heavier recognition came the knowledge that her friend Gwendolen was here also, and if she were in Washington could not seem more remote. She heard old Suzumé and Maru straining to open the amado, then Tetsujo's voice calling loudly from his chamber, "Keep them all shut on the eastern side!" "Oh, my dear plum-tree! It will be torn like mist," said the girl aloud. She sat upright, patting instinctively the loops of her hair, dressed now in Japanese fashion. The floating wick of her andon fell over the edge of the saucer and went out, leaving the room in grayer darkness. The foreign clock that hung in the kitchen rang out the hour of seven. "What gloom! The storm must be terrible indeed!" A moment after the girl said, with a shudder, "This is the day on which I am to speak of my love. I hear his voice calling through the wind. I must wait no longer. Yes, I will speak to-day." At breakfast the small family of three was silent and preoccupied. The one glimpse they had taken of the shivering, naked plum-tree would have sufficiently accounted for the depression. Iriya and Yuki sat a little behind the master, eating from their small rice-bowls, and attending in turn upon his wants. As Suzumé crept in to remove the half-emptied dishes, Yuki said to her father, "Father, a little later, when you have smoked and read your paper, may I speak with you?" "Why, certainly, my child," said Tetsujo, kindly, looking up from the damp printed sheet he had already unfurled; "though I may have but few thoughts apart from this terrible storm." "It is a terrible storm," shuddered Iriya. "A great camphor-tree in the Zen Temple garden has fallen. It was a goblin-tree, and the priests fear evil." "I spoke not of the storm in the material universe, but of that vast political tempest brewing over us. Our minister leaves St. Petersburg to-morrow. War has practically come." No comment was made. The three tacitly avoided, each, the glance of the other. Iriya rose quietly, then Yuki. In the door-frame the girl paused. "I shall return in half an hour, father." Tetsujo nodded. "I shall be here."