Page:Madame Butterfly; Purple eyes; A gentleman of Japan and a lady; Kito; Glory (1904).djvu/94

 girl's face afflicted him. He saw in her attire the pitiful preparations to welcome the husband he now knew to be a craven, and in her face what it had cost to wait for him. But in specie the lie was difficult.

"Well," he began uncertainly, "we—it all happened about as you had supposed. He got very angry, and would have rushed right up the hill, as you thought, only—only—" What next? The wish to lie had grown upon him wondrously as he went on. But invention flagged. The despatches on his desk caught his eye. "Only—he was not permitted a moment's leave while in the harbor. He had all these despatches to prepare—for—for his government the war, you know. All in cipher."

He showed them to her. A brilliant thought came into his head.

"See! They are all in his handwriting."

He had not written a line of them.

"His ship was ordered away suddenly to China; but he '11 be back here some of these fine days, and then—"

The rest was for her. At any rate, he could lie no more.

"All—all the gods in heaven bless—you," she said, sinking with the reaction.