e! How
she feared the smiling faces and the watchful eyes, from which it
seemed she never could escape!

Christmas was at hand, the season of pretty presents and good things
to eat. Her last Christmas she had spent with Geoffrey on the Riviera.
Lady Everington had been there. They had watched the pigeon
shooting in the warm sunlight. They had gone to the opera in the
evening--_Madame Butterfly!_ Asako had imagined herself in the role of
the heroine, so gentle, so faithful, waiting and waiting in her little
wooden house for the big white husband--who never came. What was that?
She heard the guns of his ship saluting the harbour. He was coming
back to her at last--but not alone! A woman was with him, a white
woman!

Alone, in her bare room--her only companion a flaky yellow
chrysanthemum nodding in the draught--Asako sobbed and sobbed as
though her heart were breaking. Somebody tapped at the sliding
shutter. Asako could not answer. The _shoji_ was pushed open, and
Tanaka entered.

Asako was glad to see him. Alone of the household Tanaka was still
deferential in his attitude towards his late mistress. He was always
ready to talk about the old times which gave her a bitter pleasure.

"If Ladyship is so sad," he began, as he had been coached in his part
beforehand by the Fujinami, "why Ladyship stay in this house? Change
house, change trouble, we say."

"But where can I go?" Asako asked helplessly.

"Ladyship has pretty house by river brink," suggested Tanaka.
"Ladyship can stay two month, three month. Then the springtime come
and Ladyship feel quite happy again. Even I, in the winter season, I
find the mind very distress. It is often so."

To be alone, to be free from the daily insults and cruelty; this in
itself would be happiness to Asako.

"But will Mr. Fujinami allow me to go?" she asked, timorously.

"Ladyship must be brave," said the counselor. "Ladyship is not
prisoner. Ladyship must say, I go. But perhaps I can arrange matter
for Ladyship."

"Oh, Tanaka, please, please do. I'm so unhappy here."

"I will hire cook and maid for Ladyship. I myself will be seneschal!"

Mr. Fujinami Gentaro and his family were delighted to hear that their
plan was working so smoothly, and that they could so easily get rid of
their embarrassing cousin. The "seneschal" was instructed at once
to see about arrangements for the house, which had not been lived in
since its new tenancy.

Next evening, when Asako had spread the