“Not dead!” His hands unclinched. His fears had lent phantoms to his imagination. “Alive! Why, then all was well.” His thought escaped his lips, and the woman answered:
He could have laughed. What! Was this servant of his trying to frighten him with her old jealous tales of the insincerity of his wife’s conversion. The sins of Azalea were microscopic.
“Come, Natsu, let us go to her,” he said impatiently. “Why do you look at me in that way? Are you, too, seeking to hide her whereabouts from me?”
“No, master, but if I take you thither, you will curse me for my evil offices.”
“I don’t understand you, Natsu. You always were a mystery to me. But now, come. Where is she?”
As he still sought to draw her along with him, she slipped down to his feet and stayed his progress with her head there.
“Why do you seek to deceive me, Natsu? What is the matter with you? Why do you act thus? What has happened to my wife? Speak!”
Still kneeling, with her head at his feet, she answered:
“She has become wife to Matsuda Isami, Oh, Highness.”
As he did not speak or seem to comprehend her words, she repeated them. And then, as still he made no sound, she said:
“Isami is richest man in Sanyo. What is there he cannot buy?”
She was seized by the shoulders in a savage grip. Her very teeth smote together with the shock of his grasp.
“You lie!” he cried. “You lie! Vile thing, you lie, I say!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was the evening of the return of Richard Verley to Sanyo. Azalea was sitting passively under the hands of the maid, Natsu, having her shining black hair brushed and twisted into the elaborate mode approved by Matsuda. Word had come into the room where thus far she had been kept a prisoner, ordering her to prepare for the wedding ceremony. Whatever her inward emotions, now as she sat under the hands of the woman, she showed only a stoical calm. That nameless antagonism which had always existed between these two had become a deeper thing during these days in the house of Matsuda. Instinctively Azalea knew the woman for an enemy, and accordingly feared and hated her. Though forced to submit to the woman’s attendance, yet she would not condescend a word either of entreaty or command. Matsuda held her destiny in his hand. He could rob her of her child. He had kept his word and taught her lips to frame themselves to meeker words. But the woman—Natsu-san—to her at least she need not kneel. Now on this day as Natsu dressed her mistress, Azalea showed no interest in the other’s evident agitation, despite the fact that the woman showed unusual signs of being discomposed. Finally as the silence became unbearable to her, the woman broke it with strange words: