[Illustration: He was suddenly startled to see a girlish form coming towards him in the wavering shadows]
She then turned and walked with him as he led the way to their humble dwelling. Now that her parents had consented to her marrying him they need not wait long, he told himself. How fortunate he was that he should have gained such faithful and unchanging love as that of his beautiful Tama.
As they went along exchanging blissful confidences as to their undying love for one another, he told her of his oath never to wed another woman for her dear sake.
They entered the house together, the nearness of her sweet presence thrilling him to his finger-tips. Impatiently he knelt to light the lamp, placed ready on his low writing table, then with joy inexpressible at the anticipation of all that the future held for them, he turned to speak to her.
But to his utter bewilderment Tama was gone. He searched the house and garden, and with a lantern went and peered down the road, but she was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished as suddenly and mysteriously as she had appeared.
Hayashi thought the incident more than strange; it was eerie in the extreme. Returning alone to his empty room, he shivered as a chill of foreboding seemed to penetrate his whole being, withering as with an icy breath the newly awakened impulses of hope and longing. A thousand recollections of his love crowded upon him, and kept him tossing uneasily upon his pillow all through the night. With the first break of dawn he was no longer able to control his feverish anxiety for news of her, and rising hurriedly, he at once set out for Fukagawa.
Eagerly he hastened to the house of an old friend to make inquiries regarding the merchant's family and especially about Tama. To his dismay he learned that she had passed away but a few days before, and listened with an aching heart to the account of her long illness. And he knew that she had died for love of him.
He returned to his home stupefied with grief and tormented with self-reproach.
"Oh, Tama! Tama! My love!" he cried aloud in his anguish, as he threw himself down in his room and gave way to his despair. "Had I but known of your illness I would have come to you. It was your spirit that appeared to me yesterday. Oh! come to me again! Tama! Tama!"
