dead, and you are not. I am not
an angel, and this is not a heaven!"

"Oh!" said Arisuga; and then, "All right," as if it were a thing to be
endured. He ended by also laughing. "But you must excuse the mistake. It
seems a good deal like a heaven, and you more like an angel."

Still, as he looked about, and at the girl, he was not sure. That is
what they were likely to tell a sick man.

"Might I touch you?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!" cried the girl, with a pleasure which challenged his
attention. She put herself within his reach.

"It is _not_ a heaven," he agreed, when he had passed his hand along an
exquisite arm.

"I am honorably glad that you are not dead," breathed the girl, bravely.
"Are not you?"

And every little atom of her showed that she was glad and begged that he
might be. Though the mists were still in the brain of Shijiro Arisuga,
he could not help knowing both of these things: her innocence had
uncovered them so completely. For a moment he studied her. Then he
answered a tardy yes to her question.

"For such as you it is good to live--yes--and--" The soldier stopped to
sigh. "Good for others to live near you for the little while."

"For a little while, lord?"

She thought it the mere hyperbole of their race.

"Oh, you shall be old, old, old, and beautiful, with long white hair and
perhaps a beard, and all the earth shall worship your piety--"

Arisuga laughed and caught a hand to stop her.

"Lord," she went on, "most vast lord, I will make you. Yes! I have thus
far made it to be. When they brought you they said you would die. So
said my father and mother. But I--"

She turned and summoned her maid with fierce irrelevance.

"Isonna, come here!"

The maid hastened from the next room, where, it is almost certain, she
had lain with her ear to the fusuma, and then Hoshiko's mysterious
purpose appeared.

"But I--Isonna and me--this is Isonna, my ugly maid--Isonna and me
prayed for you--wept for you; you were so beautiful and bloody. And
Benten--see, I have Benten always near! Benten loves the tears of
sympathy, and to her we prayed, so--"

"I owe you and Isonna my life," laughed the soldier.

"No, Benten," whispered the girl, now answering his laugh with a smile.
"And she will grant other prayers of ours--Isonna and me--will she not,
Isonna, you little beast? Why do you not speak?"

Isonna corroborated her mistress by a deep prostration.

"And so we have asked for long life for you, very