By daily visits Kobu kept himself advised of the patient’s condition, and kept us informed of the swift approach of the Vancouver steamer and its dreaded passenger.  One day, when Page was sleeping and our anxiety as to what was coming had reached the breaking point, the detective came.  He announced that he had received information that the steamer had docked at Yokohama that morning.  In the afternoon the Chicago Bank representative would arrive at Otsu, our nearest railroad station.  Kobu said he would bring the guest to our house at once and his kind wish that Page San’s “sicker would soon be healthy” did not wholly hide the triumph of his professional pride.

He went his way to the station, leaving behind him thoughts sadder than death can bring.

When I told Jane what we were to expect her pale eyes were almost drowned.  She looked frail and tired, but from somewhere a smile made rainbows of her tears.

“Don’t give up, Miss Jenkins.  No use crying over cherry blossoms before they wither.  Kobu’s human enough to be mistaken.  Detectives aren’t so smart.  Sometimes they tree a chipmunk and think it’s a bear.”

It was the nearest I’d ever heard Jane come to a criticism, and I knew she felt deeply to go this far.

Zura listened quietly to what I had to tell.  But her eyes darkened and widened.  “You mean they are coming to take Page away?”

“Yes; as soon as he is strong enough.”

“Then I am going with him.”

“Go with him?  You, a young girl, go with a man who is in charge of an officer?  It’s impossible.  I pray God it’s not true, but if the law can prove that Page has sinned, he will have to pay the penalty in prison.  You can’t go there.”

“No, but I can wait outside, and be ready to stand by him when he is released.  No matter how guilty the law declares him, he is still the same Page to me.  He’s mine.  I belong to him.  Did not my own mother think home and country well lost for love?  She knew her fate and smiled while she blindly followed.  I know mine, and there is no other path for me but by the side of Page.  Whatever comes I’ve known his love.”

It was not the raving of a hysterical girl; it was the calm utterance of a woman—­one of the East, who in recognizing the call of her destiny unshrinkingly accepts its decrees of sorrow as well as of joy.  By training, environment and inclination Zura Wingate might be of the West; but her Occidental blood was diluted with that of the East, and wherever is found even one small drop, though it sleep long, in the end it arises and claims its own as surely as death claims life.

It was only a little while since Kobu had left us to go to the station to bring the unwelcome visitor from America.

The hills had scarcely ceased the echo of the shrieking engine, it seemed to me, when I heard the tap of the gong at the entrance.  I started at once for Page’s room where Zura and Jane were on watch.