In her own room Yuki moved about mechanically, putting into place her few indispensable possessions,--a silver brush, comb, and hand-glass, her white prayer-book and neat Bible, a picture of Gwendolen in a burnt-leather frame, and a lacquered box containing a second photograph, not of Gwendolen, and a package of letters, all addressed in the same hand. She fought to keep her imagination from the coming war. Its dark omen only strengthened her determination to have things understood. She prayed for strength and self-control. Punctual to the moment she entered the guest-room, bowing again to her father. He looked up from his brooding revery. Something in the girl's face made him ask, "Ah, have you indeed a matter of importance? My little Yuki has gone. This is a woman who comes to speak with me." "Alas, father. Childhood, like the petals of the plum-tree, vanishes at the breath of storms." "What storm can have found you so early, my little one?" Yuki drew in a long breath, and steadied herself for a deliberate reply. In the pause Tetsujo leaned out, and with one motion of his powerful hand flung a panel of the shoji to one side, giving a view of the drenched and storm-tormented garden. On the veranda floor, usually so smooth, beaten plum-petals clung like bits of white leather. The drip from the low-tiled roof enclosed them in the bars of a silver cage. "This is my distress, father," began Yuki. "I am a Japanese girl, with my first loyalty toward you and my native country;--yet, in that new land where you sent me,--I have come--I have grown honorably to feel, almost without warning, the--influence of a--person." Tetsujo looked faintly surprised. "Indeed, I trust so, my child. You would be but a poor, unresponsive creature to have felt no influences. It is from such things that character and knowledge are builded. There were many persons who influenced you, I take it,--some for good, perhaps some for evil. To an intelligent mind a warning is valuable. Now, at home, you will have the leisure to sort and adapt such impressions, casting away those that are trivial and employing those which may be of service to Japan." "It is augustly as you indicate, dear father," returned Yuki, the distress in her dark eyes deepening. "I attempted to observe many things. But the influence I spoke of is not that kind you are thinking. It--it--is a very special influence. In America they call it--love." She bowed her head over slightly. A faint pink tide of embarrassment showed on her forehead and in the small bared triangle of her throat. Tetsujo controlled himself well. "You mean--love--'ai'--the love of a man and a woman who wish to marry?" "In America one thinks very differently of such matters," said Yuki, her eyes still lowered. "Yet I suppose the feeling is honorably the same everywhere. Yes, father, it is of such love that I now must tell you."