Page:Madame Butterfly; Purple eyes; A gentleman of Japan and a lady; Kito; Glory (1904).djvu/209

 incense, and left in his heart a transcendent hope that else had never blossomed there. Doubtless, they said, the Lord Buddha, seeing his wife and child defenseless in the midst of peril, had reached with his great arm out of heaven, and lifted them into his Bosom with intent to send them back again in more glorious bodies. And perhaps, if he were faithful, and lived to the extinction of all passion, all desire, he might see them. Such things had been known here on earth. To his breathless question of where, they answered, wherever the Lord Buddha pleased—perhaps, nay probably, at this very temple!

Cunning bonzes! They bound his allegiance beyond possibility of rupture in those few words.

At first the Bosom of the Lord did not seem great enough to hide them from him. He rebelled against this celestial abduction. Then came madness for them once more, and he throttled one of the priests. But this passed. Gradually the benign comfort of the priests' words found a firm lodgment in his heart. They knew the value of iteration upon simple minds. Gradually, from dwelling upon the countenance of the