He undid the clinging arms about his neck, and stood as though plunged deep in moody thought. When his father and brother came into the room, he did not lift his head.
“Junzo, do you know your brother?” asked the youth Okido, stepping to his side.
“Why, yes, you are my younger brother, Kido-sama. Good morning!”
“Oh, ani-san!” cried the youth, in mournful tones. “How strangely you speak, how strangely you look!”
“Son,” said the father, sternly, laying his hands on Junzo’s shoulder, “it is your father speaking now. I named you Junzo (obedience). From youth you have obeyed my voice. Now come! I bid you go to your chamber. There you shall lie, your mother and young sister will attend you, and Kido here shall hasten for a learned doctor, a foreign man of science lately come to Kamakura. You are distraught and ill.”
“I am quite well, excellent father, and I must go at once to Tokyo.”
“I command obedience to my will! Come, Junzo!”
“Command! A little while ago—or maybe it was long ago, within another lifetime, she said it was an ancient practice to obey parental command. Yet I always was so fond of the old rules of life that I will recognize my duty, father. I bow in filial submissiveness to your high will.”
But as he bowed his head in mock obedience he was so weak he would have fallen down, but that the sturdy Kido and his father supported him.
For days and weeks the artist-man of Kamakura tossed upon a bed of illness, a prey to violent fever of the brain, so termed by the great Dutch doctor visiting the little town. After many days there came a calm. Junzo slept and dreamed.
He thought the angel face of Sado-ko bent over his heated head, and that she brushed the tumbled locks back from his brow, and cooled it with her own soft, lovely hands. He cried her name and whispered it again and yet again. Was it only fancy, or did he truly hear that low, low voice, sighing back in answer, and soothing him with tender words of love?
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IT was a happy day in the Kamura household when the cheerful and rapid-moving foreign doctor pronounced the patient strong enough to leave his room to sit a little while upon the balcony. His brothers were eager to assist the weak and emaciated Junzo to the soft seat they had prepared for him. He protested that he was able to walk alone, but finally admitted that the light, guiding hand of his fiancée was a sufficient support.
