And if these things were inevitable, if there remained at Azuchi a soul forlorn and perchance bitter, perhaps welling up a still more ruthless indisposition, and if the ideal toward which a hapless, helpless woman had bent her every energy, sacrificed the body to preserve a soul, were attained--if all this had resulted in fact, there yet remained among them one in whose heart there lingered not only a burning, compelling sense of duty, but as well an abiding faith in truth. Yodogima had not surrendered the spirit, nor had she submitted in pride, or bowed to falsehood, hate, or weakness--to her the world seemed as sweet and as wholesome as the battle had been swift or exacting. Thence life portended a fullness that hitherto had been a dream. CHAPTER XV The great sacrifice that Yodogima made only strengthened Hideyoshi's respect for her, whetted the appetite to a keener appreciation of the virtues underlying righteous generation. Ieyasu had surrendered the heart to save his neck; no such thing as pretence or any amount of subterfuge could deceive the inner workings of an understanding wrought in the light of penetration like Hideyoshi's. Yodogima had reserved the heart, sacrificing personal predisposition only that she might serve fairly the honor of an under-sex--she had not submitted through compulsion or fear of any man; the kwambaku knew that, if others did not, and the very consciousness of it made him what no earthly power could have done. "Such generosity," said he, to Oyea, in answer to her questioning, "cannot be requited so easily; there must be a place set apart for them; perhaps among the stars, and such as you and I can best attain our peace in humbler ways--reverence has withstood the storm of ages." "But are not the gods self-asserted?" "Well, yes; I once thought so, perhaps do yet; but self-assertion, not grounded upon self-denial, may prove an empty blessing--as it has with me. Would you profit by example, then look; even Hideyoshi has found it meet that we reason together; who declares himself wiser than the humblest is in truth an ass; deception cannot weather the test of time." They were sitting in the dusk, midway between day and night, and arising, Hideyoshi approached the family shrine--it seemed empty and so unlike the needs of distinction, yet the kwambaku had, upon his return from Odawara, stopped at Nakamura and done reverence to his long buried but sadly neglected parents. Nor had Nita (a first, but intractable, therefore divorced, wife) been passed by without some little recognition--possibly as an encouragement to this one, Oyea, in this her most trying need. "What of night following the day?" asked he, of her, lighting one, then the other of five carefully selected and wistfully named sticks of incense for her to sniff and guess or call as pleased her most and fitted best his mood.