Page:Madame Butterfly; Purple eyes; A gentleman of Japan and a lady; Kito; Glory (1904).djvu/193

 "He had a wife and child; both very beautiful—more beautiful than he deserved. When he killed himself with the rest at Shiroyama, they heard of it and disappeared. Some say the Lord Buddha took them. They disappeared—like that smoke." He pointed to it. " They have never been seen since the news came home. As for me, I think they are still on earth. Others think them in heaven. He is dead—do you hear? What can it matter where they are? "

"Yes," said Kito, softly, "I hear. He is dead. And what can it matter—what can it matter?"

He turned and went back to the hills, repeating to himself: "He is dead—he is dead! What can it matter?"

For many days he sought them there. And when the days had lengthened into weeks, and the weeks into months, he met a woman, one day, who said, with quite an air, that it was nothing more mysterious than a pilgrimage to Isé. It was the season of the cherry-blossoms when they went, and perhaps they meant to renew the god-slips in the kamidana. That was their custom. Perhaps they had gone to supplicate the