“The morning we left for the mountains,” she began, “two letters came for me by mail but I didn’t read them until I got on the train.  One of them was from that awful woman and it frightened me terribly.  It seemed cordial enough on the surface but my eyes have been opened to her.  I don’t know just what she is, but she is dangerous I am certain,—­like a cat ready to spring.  She said she had taken such a fancy to me that she must see me again and she thought it would be advisable for me to come to her home at once.  The other letter was from that horrid Yoritomo and he simply threatened in so many words to blow up the house and everybody in it unless I listened to him.  I didn’t think much about the letters until we were settled in the hotel.  Then I began to get more and more uneasy and I thought the best thing for me to do was to come back to Tokyo and see Mr. Campbell.  I knew, of course, that Miss Helen would never let me go alone, so I just ran away.”

“And very glad we are to see you, Miss Nancy,” broke in Mr. Campbell in the tone of one who felt enormously relieved.

“We were all night on the train,” continued Nancy.  “The storm had washed the track away in places and we had to wait many times while it was repaired.  As soon as I arrived, I took a ’riksha to Mr. Buxton’s lodgings and then we went to see Mme. Fontaine and Yoritomo—­”

“Oh, that widow woman,” interrupted Mr. Buxton.  “She’s a sly one, I can tell you.  As we entered the front door, she departed at the back.  We left several policemen waiting for her to return but I wouldn’t be surprised if she were well on her way to Shanghai by now.”

“I don’t understand,” said Billie.

“The time we quarreled, Billie, and I behaved like such a silly little goose,” Nancy explained, “you remember I went to see her.  I don’t know what made me do it, except that I wanted to air my troubles.  I’ve been so unhappy since, that I feel years older now.  I was only a child then, but I’m quite an old person now.  She talked to me a long time that night and got me all stirred up and believing that I had been badly treated.  It was not what she really said but what she hinted.  She seemed to know a good deal about Mr. Campbell’s work.  She implied that what he was doing for the Japanese government was disloyal to America.  I was so fascinated with the way she put things and the way she looked at me, too, that I didn’t seem to have any power over myself any more.  It was like being hypnotized, I suppose.  It came into my head to write you a terrible letter, Billie,—­” Nancy’s eyes filled with tears and her voice choked—­“I can hardly think of it now without crying.  She knew I was writing it but she didn’t ask what was in it, only occasionally, while I wrote, she would look over at me and say ’Poor darling!  Poor pretty darling!’ After I got to bed, I came to my senses and began to realize what I had done.  I was terribly frightened and unhappy and in the middle