All these things threshed out, searched for and understood, before the days of Yodogima, she believed that even they in their advanced position might profit by maintaining some sort of intercourse with the outside world; in fact, could not close their doors to other men, however low in the scale of humanism, so long as the God ideal held fast in the human heart. "You are a Buddhist, Harunaga?" inquired the princess, after a pause. "Yes, your ladyship." "And knowledge is the foundation of that belief?" "Yes, most honorable princess." "Then, why does Ieyasu refuse enlightment; Christianity, like all religions, is but a means to that end?" "Because it is vicious, and the prince would be human," replied he, argumentatively. Yodogima hesitated; she were treading upon sacred grounds to answer, and answer she would. The breath of a thousand, perhaps ten thousands, or more, years floated in from a realized haven to fan the flame of remembrance. This beauty land of theirs she knew, stretching far and away, to the very limits of an empire--carved and wrought of material perchance as crude and hopeful as any other now struggling as they once did--stimulated within her breast a desire to extend a helping hand: the cold dread of war, the cruel thirst for greed, the angry cry of, "On with the battle," behind it all, underlying the activities out of which their culture had grown, froze hard the blood in her veins. Here were men blessed with plenty and endowed of godliness still striking at each other; more artistically, and effectively, but none the less cowardly for that. "What mean these men by fighting so?" inquired she, searching deeper than Harunaga had divined. "To enforce a will," replied he, without any hesitation. "To vindicate the soul?" "Yes." "Then it is not cowardly to use force, or its concomitant?" "No." "I did no wrong, if that is true, in visiting the temple," mused she, unabatedly. Harunaga flushed, then turned pale. "Not at all, your ladyship," replied he, to her apparent satisfaction, though he knew very well that Christianity had been the means of taking her there. "You are not pained, are you, Harunaga, at what I said?" "How could I be, most honorable princess?" "Then hereafter say, 'Yodogima'; I love to hear the name." The personal note, whatever his predilection, touched Harunaga, as no other had; from the days of his childhood, in the service of Shibata, in far distant Kitanoshi, he had formed only the component part of a machine. The breath of life touched him, accordingly, as none other had done. Here lived a princess, possessing a mechanism most intricate, suffering the discipline of enforced conditions, with all the limitations, yet breathing the very spirit of humanitarianism. If such as she could find a place in her heart for the flame that enlivens, why not he grasp at a spark?