"I--can not. You ... you would hold me cheap ... I would be--I am!... What? Yes, it was a tulip tree. I was sixteen.... Oh, you couldn't have--why, you'd forgotten the whole thing! You had, you _had_!... Don't hold me.... No, I don't care what you think!... Yes, I _do_ care!... Yes, I--I ... This is perfectly shameless!... Dark? That makes it all the worse. What will you ... No, no! You must not kiss me again! We must go back!--I will go back...." She freed herself, and he fumbled for his fallen candle. He struck a match. The sputtering blue flame lit her white, languorous face, her fallen hair, her heaving breast. It went out. He struck another and the wick blazed up. "Look at me, dear!" he said. "Tell me in the light. Will you marry me?" "I can not answer--now." "Why? Don't you love me?" "I--in so short a time, how could I? Let us go now. I don't know myself--nor--nor you!" She was trembling, and he noted it with a pang of compunction. "To-morrow, sweetheart? Will you give me my answer then?" "Yes!" It was almost inaudible. "At the Foreign Minister's ball to-morrow night? I'll come to you there, dearest. I--" He stopped. She had caught her hand to her throat with a wild gesture. "Ben-ten! She--she is frowning at us! There--look there!" "My poor darling!" he said. "You are nervous. See, it was only the shadow! I ought not to have brought you into this dismal hole! You are positively shivering." "Let us hurry," she said, and they went quickly into the warmer air and light of the entrance. The squall had passed with the fateful swiftness of its coming. The waves still gurgled and tumbled, but the fury of the wind was over. The murk light had lifted, showing the wet sky a patchy drab, which again was beginning to show glimpses of golden hue. * * * * * They walked back to Haru at the tea-house, beneath the wild, poignant beauty of disheveled cryptomeria, echoing once more the eternal song of the _semi_--along paths strewn with drenched petals and sweet with the moist scents of sodden leaves--then together, down the steep, templed hill and across the planked walk to the mainland, where a trolley buzzed through the springing rice-fields, musical now with the _mé kayui_--_mé kayui_ of the frogs. Daunt accompanied them to the through line of the railway. From there he was to return to Kamakura for the answer to his letter. The sun was setting when the Tokyo express pulled into the station. As Haru disappeared into the compartment, Daunt took Barbara's hand to help her to the platform. There had been no other first-class passengers to embark and the forward end of the asphalt was deserted. Her lovely, flushed face was turned toward him, and there in the dusk of the station, he bent swiftly and kissed her once more on the lips. "Dearest, dearest!" he said behind his teeth, and turned quickly away.