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loneliness, and sense of lost faith. He felt bitterly towards this true self of his, which—even if he imperilled his own person and sacrificed the lives of his retainers—he could never know.

At Sadayū’s fall Ukon had taken up the discarded spear; with this in his hand, he now stood at the ready. He showed no trace of fear. His face, it is true, was pale, but the eyes glowed with fierce resolution.

Lord Tadanao felt that Ukon at least, the man who had dared to speak so frankly last night, would surely offer a determined resistance, and, summoning back his will to fight, which had been fast evaporating, he turned to face him.

But Ukon, no less than Sadayū, was deeply moved by a sense of his own guilt. And he too was resolved to expiate his crime by death upon his lord’s spear.

In the course of five or six exchanges Lord Tadanao noticed that his opponent repeatedly contrived to leave the vital region of his breast unguarded. This fellow too, he realized with a sudden mortifying return of his sense of loneliness, was prepared to throw away his very life to cheat his lord to the end. The idea of vanquishing an opponent who thus artfully assisted him was a sickening absurdity.

But Ukon, as if realizing that he must accomplish his wish without further delay, suddenly manoeuvred his body into the path of a feint from Lord Tadanao’s spear, and was pierced through the right shoulder.

Lord Tadanao had most wonderfully vented his rancour of last night. But it had merely created a new sadness in his heart. Both Ukon and Sadayū, at the risk of their lives, had maintained their pretence.

When Lord Tadanao heard late that night that the wounded Ukon and Sadayū, upon being carried to their respective homes, had both, at their chosen time, ripped open their stomachs, he lapsed into a mood of even deeper despondency.

Lord Tadanao pondered the matter carefully. Between these men and himself there stretched a solid, dividing tissue of deceit. This tissue, this barrier of pretence, they were striving