, at first, but a single sip of tea, a grain or two of rice.
He, in his weakness, was gentle and obedient, like a good child, eating
all she bade him, and refraining when she told him that he had enough.
It was a new Tatsu that sorrow had given to the Kano home.

But more wonderful than the transformation in him was, in Mata's
thought, the complete reversal of her own emotions. Even in the midst
of service she stopped to wonder how, so soon, it could be sweet to
serve him,--to minister thus to the man she had called the evil genius
of the house. In some mysterious way it seemed that through him the
dead young wife was being served. In the smile he bent upon her, the
old nurse fancied that she caught a tenderness as of Ume's smile.
Perhaps, indeed, the homeless soul, denied its usual shelter in the
shrine, made sanctuary of the husband's earthly frame. Perhaps, too,
Kano had hoped for this, and so refused the ihai. However these high
things might be, Mata knew she had gained strange comfort in the very
fact of Tatsu's presence, in the companionship of his suffering.

When, being nourished, Tatsu insisted on sitting upright, and had
recalled the scene about him, his first question was of Ume's shrine,
where the ihai had been set, and what the kaimyo. This loosened Mata's
tongue, and, with a sensation of deep relief, she began to empty her
heart of its pent-up acrimony. Tatsu listened now, attentively; not as
would have been his way three months before with gesticulations and
frequent interruptions, but gravely, with consideration, as one intent
to learn the whole before forming an opinion. Even at the end he would
say nothing but the words, "Strange, strange; there must be a reason
that you have not guessed."

"But we will get the ihai, will we not, Master? Together, when you are
strong, we will climb the long road to the temple?" she questioned
tremulously.

"Indeed we shall," said Tatsu, with his heartrending smile; "for at
best, the thoughts of Kano Indara cannot be our thoughts. He let her
die."

At this the other burst into such a passion of tears that she could not
speak, but rocked, sobbing, to and fro, on the mats beside him. He
wondered, with a feeling not far from envy, at this open demonstration
of distress.

"I cannot weep at all," he said. Then, a little later, when she had
become more calm, "Are your tears for me or for Ume-ko?"

"For both, for both," was the sobbing answer. "For her, th