It required no little resolution unblenchingly to follow the straight but rugged path. O'Kikú smarted more than ever under his cold and implacable disdain. All her arts were useless. Maddened, she strove to pique him by excesses of abandonment under his very nose, and was convulsed by fits of corroding acrimony to discover how futile were her efforts. Against all her attacks he was armed _cap-à-pié_. If my lord would but return, that she might wreak envenomed spite upon these two, whom now with her whole soul she hated! Meanwhile the only result produced by her reckless behaviour was that the samurai, for the most part, disapproved of her more and more; while Sampei, to shun the sight of one so odious, devoted himself to excursions and the chase. Away upon the hill, with its temple and solemn arcades of greenery, as in the hum of the houses below, the cloud of anxiety was thickening. The still dim shrine no longer lulled to devout prayer the soul of Masago. In the midst of supplication her mind turned worldwards. She yearned over her son and the tottering family. She grieved so for O'Tei, when the chatelaine arrived for prayers, that her hard face grew wondrous soft, and she marvelled at the stoniness of destiny. Seeing now with clearer ken than in the past, when she had admired the warlike Tomoyé, adored her rude lord, had almost persuaded herself to believe that all that he did was good, she began to have a denned perception of his crimes, mingled with a startled regret. He had been guilty of much that was deplorable. No-Kami had been brought up in his father's school, had from the first gone lengths that were much more regrettable, to end in deeds which she preferred not to contemplate. He deserved to be accursed, and was accursed. Our sins, like sable ravens, return to roost. Ever since the culminating crime, events had moved so directly towards a visible goal that the finger of fate was plain. But why Sampei? Why the fair and good O'Tei, a symbol of all that was pure? These questions, so bewildering, would rise persistently to the surface. Why should these two, mixed up in this horror, without overt act of theirs, be marched as victims to the sacrifice? She had heard from Sampei that my lord had rallied suddenly before he went to Ki[^y]oto, and this started a fresh train of thought. O'Kikú, the baleful geisha, was at the bottom of all the trouble. She had suddenly appeared, emissary of devils, on the fatal day, and ever since had been a scourge. Thanks to an inspiration from above, the Abbess had been the means of separating my lord from his concubine. Oh, what if, Heaven relenting, the separation might become final--No-Kami himself reformed? The soul of Masago gave a great leap. Yes, she saw light at last--the light for which she had besought so fervently. _She_ was to be the humble means of unravelling the tangle, of saving the family honour.