Ieyasu stood by, and with Ishida's addressing the princess so familiarly a flush at first reddened his face, then a cold pallor revealed the blow finding lodgement in his heart. Nor had Ishida's words roused in her lesser feelings; more certainly of contempt. She had, perhaps, at a fatal moment, unduly sacrificed her bearing toward him, but she had judged him not manly, yet wiser than to endanger himself by resolving a license granted, into an indiscretion, possibly fatal to both alike. "You apparently take an undue advantage, Ishida; please explain yourself," commanded the princess. Ishida only laughed, whereat Yodogima turned crimson. "Perhaps deeds better than words might compose your ladyship. Suppose I name Harunaga; his guardianship, over this boy Hideyori, should prove to be no less willingly bestowed than agreeably acceptable. What say you, Ieyasu; I understand that your word, whatever the opinion, is of great weight, in some quarters, about matters domestic, if not marriages politic. Come, craven; out with it, before I shall have proven Harunaga innocent by chopping your head off." "Cur," snapped Ieyasu, whipping out his sword; "Kitagira shall be guardian of Hideyori; I name him." "You are a coward, and an impossibility," shouted Ishida, drawing to fight. Yodogima forcibly threw herself between them: why, she did not know; instinctively she believed Ishida, the civilian, no match for Ieyasu, a veteran of many battles. Neither one of them would harm her, and their eyes gleamed the deadlier in consequence. Konishi alone separated them, though by so doing, he, too, gained an enmity that finally drove him irrevocably into the camp of Ishida. The captains had seen Yodogima, the favorite of Hideyoshi and the mother of Hideyori, disgraced, and they as willingly held Ishida at fault; his apparently strange and rapid growth in favor, if not as suitor, at Ozaka had roused their jealousies; the mysterious death of Maeda, which none could attribute more to Ishida than to Ieyasu, both alike detractors as well as usurpers, now, in consequence of Yodogima's apparent shielding--knowing, as they believed she must know, the one's utter inequality--suddenly attached itself to the former; Ishida had become intolerable, for withal Ieyasu's faults, a samurai as against a civilian should be condoned unto treachery--they swore, then, and there, to take the life of Ishida. And Yodogima vowed, to herself, that they should not; she had a reason: Ieyasu may or may not have had, for on the spur of the moment he considered it expedient or wise to hurry from the scene, hiding himself away in a yakata (small house) near the palace at Fushima. There Ishida found him, as with hearing about the captains' determination to put an end to him, the lovesick valet of former years had thrown himself upon the mercies of none other than a master's widow. "Accept me, Yodogima," begged he; "I am your true lover, and will die for you."