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Rh was wholly unexampled, or whether it was in point of fact far more common than one would suppose. But he could never find the right way to introduce such a subject. It was clear that he must get his knowledge from other sources, and he threw himself with fresh ardour into the study of history, reading every book with the sole object of discovering other cases like his own. In China, he soon found, irregularities of descent have not only in many cases been successfully concealed till long afterwards, but have often been known and tolerated from the beginning. In Japan he could discover no such instance; but he knew that if things of this kind occurred, they would probably not be recorded, so that their absence from native history might only mean that in our country such matters are hushed up more successfully than elsewhere.

The more he thought about it, the more Genji regretted that Ryōzen should have discovered (as from His Majesty’s repeated offers of abdication he now felt certain to be the case) the real facts concerning his birth. Fujitsubo, Genji was sure, would have given anything rather than that the boy should know; it could not have been by her instructions that the secret had been divulged. Who then had betrayed him? Naturally his thoughts turned towards Ōmyōbu. She had moved into the apartments which had been made out of the old offices of the Lady of the Bedchamber. Here she had been given official quarters and was to reside permanently in the Palace. Discussing the matter with her one day, Genji said: ‘Are you sure that you yourself, in the course of some conversation with his Majesty, may not by accident have put this idea into his head?’ ‘It is out of the question,’ she replied. ‘I know too well how determined my Lady was that he should never discover … indeed, the fear that he might one day stumble upon the facts for himself was her constant torment.