ve a
message from--her--"

"No, no," moaned the boy, his wound opening anew. "Do not speak it. I
was beginning to feel a little peace from pain. Do not speak of her.
You can have no message."

"I have known Kano Ume-ko her whole life long," persisted the holy man.
"She is worthy of a nobler love than this you are giving her."

"There may be love more noble, but none--none--more terrible than
mine," wailed out the sick man. "I cannot even die. I am quickened by
the flames that burn me; fed by the viper, Life, that feeds on my
despair. My flesh cankers with a self-renewing sore! Could I but
bathe my wounds in death!"

"Poor suffering one, this flesh is only the petal fallen from a
perfected bloom! Whether her tender body, or this racked and twitching
frame upon your bed, all flesh is illusion. Think of your soul and its
immortal lives! Think of your wife's pure soul, and for its sake make
effort to defy and vanquish this demon of self-destruction."

"Was not her own deed that of self-destruction?" challenged Tatsu, his
sunken eyes set in bitter triumph upon the abbot. "I shall but go upon
the road she went."

"To compare your present motives with your wife's is blasphemy," cried
the other. "Her deed held the glory of self-sacrifice, that you might
gain enlightenment; while you, railing impotently here, giving out
affront against the gods, are as the wild beast on the mountain that
cannot bear the arrow in its side."

"And it is true," said Tatsu, "I cannot bear the arrow,--I cannot
endure this pain. Show me the way to death, if you have true pity.
Let me go to her who waits me in the Meido-land."

"She does not wait you there, oh, grief deluded boy," then said the
priest. "The message that I brought is this: bound still to earth by
her great love for you her soul is near you,--in this room,--now, as I
speak, seeking an entrance to your heart, and these wild railings hold
her from you."

Tatsu half started from his pillow, and sank back. "I believe you not.
You trick me as you would a child," he moaned.

The priest knelt slowly by the bed. "In the name of Shaka,--whom I
worship,--these words of mine are true. Here, in this room, at this
moment, your Ume-ko is waiting."

"But I want her too," whispered the piteous lips. "Not only her aerial
spirit! I want her smile,--her little hands to touch me, the golden
echo of her laughter,--I want my wife, I say! Oh, you gods, demons,
preta of a thou