So, prepared to embrace Nancy tenderly and let bygones be bygones, Billie could scarcely wait to leap down from the 'riksha and ring the widow's bell. The house had a shut-up appearance, but all j.a.panese houses look thus in rainy weather. Somehow, Billie's inflated enthusiasm received a p.r.i.c.k when the bell echoed through the rooms with a hollow, empty sound.

She waited impatiently but no one came to answer it. Usually Mme.

Fontaine's well-trained maid was bowing and smiling almost before the vibrations of the bell had ceased. Billie rang again and again, and still there was no answer. She walked around the side of the house and peered through the slats of the Venetian blinds but all was dark within.

What could it mean? Where was Nancy? Where was Mme. Fontaine?

"Oh, dear; oh, dear," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Billie, wiping away the tears that would trickle down her cheeks.

But of course they had gone shopping, and the maid was at market, perhaps. That was the only explanation.

There was a bench on the piazza and Billie sat down to wait. Komatsu stood patiently under his oiled paper umbrella which he always placed in the bottom of the 'riksha in bad weather.

Exactly one hour they waited and at last Billie, disconsolate and disappointed, returned to the 'riksha and ordered Komatsu to take her to some of the shops. Everywhere she watched for the familiar gleam of Nancy's blue mackintosh, but there was no sign of it anywhere. Finally they returned to Mme. Fontaine's house, to find it still closed.

"Komatsu, where are they?" asked Billie desperately.

"Not know, but honorable young lady not look inside?"

"I can't get inside. The doors are locked. Besides, I don't like to break in on a private house like a burglar."

But to the j.a.panese the end justifies the means, and being on a search for Nancy, Komatsu was willing to go to any strategic lengths to find her.

"All same look and see," he said and together they followed the gallery around the entire house.

"Komatsu make to go up," he said after a fruitless search for an entrance. He pointed to one of the slender pillars which upheld the roof of the lower gallery forming the floor of the upper one. The next moment he had shinned up the pole and Billie could hear him walking softly on the wooden floor above. Presently he returned and placed in Billie's lap the fragments of a letter which had been pieced together and pasted on a sheet of paper.

"Top muchly more easy than bottom," he said smiling. "Empty house but all same muchly inside."

Billie glanced hastily at the sc.r.a.ps of paper and saw her own name in one corner.

"Why, it's to me," she exclaimed, and sitting on the bench, she began to decipher the pieced letter.

"Dear Billie:

"Since you all hate and disapprove of me, I do not wish to stay with you any longer. You have been anything but a friend to me, but I will not say anything more about that. I will only say that I can never forgive what you said to me the other day. I think I have outgrown you. You are just a child still and it will be a long time before you understand the ways of the world, or sympathize with me when I say that I want to broaden my life. Now, Mme. Fontaine, who knows everything, has promised--"

Here the letter broke off.

On the other side of the sheet were some more fragments of paper carefully pieced together.

"--do not wish to stay because--father's work--he should not--Mme.

Fontaine thinks--"

Billie folded the paper and slipped it into her pocket. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she felt suddenly stiff and tired. Komatsu regarded her from a distance with respectful sympathy.

"Back home," she ordered, and all the way she indulged in the bitterest weeping she had ever known in her life.

"Nancy, Nancy, how could you?" she kept repeating to herself.

Before she reached the house she dried her eyes and leaning out of the 'riksha let the rain beat against her face.

"I must think of something to tell them," she said to herself. "What did she mean about Papa's work?"

Again Billie read the last part of the note.

"I believe it's that woman who made her do this," she cried out suddenly.

"She worked her up to the point--'broaden her life'--'papa's work,' and all that. How could Nancy have thought of such things? And then after Nancy wrote the letter she repented--or perhaps the widow wouldn't let her send it--but how did it happen to be pieced together like this?"

It was all very puzzling and strange. Billie wanted time to think about it and work it out in her own mind, and she was sorry when at last Komatsu came to a full stop at their own front door. Slowly she descended and walked into the house. Suddenly there was a cry of joy from the back.

It was the other girls rushing to meet Nancy who had not come, Billie thought miserably.

And, lo, it was Nancy herself, laughing and crying at once and embracing her beloved Billie, as if they had been separated for a year and a day.

"Where did you come from?" Billie managed to gasp in a bewildered voice.

"I got back a little while ago and oh, I've been so homesick. Are you glad to see me, Billie, dearest?"

"I should think I was," said Billie, kissing Nancy's soft round cheek.

"It seems an age instead of just one night."

"Mme. Fontaine invited me to make her a visit," went on Nancy, "but--but I was too lonesome--I never slept a wink last night."

"We are all of us quite jealous of you, Nancy," put in Mary, who, with Elinor, had come upon the scene a moment before.

Billie put her hand in her pocket and felt the pieced-together letter. It almost seemed like a bad dream now.

"So you decided to come back to us, Nancy?" she asked, trying to smile naturally.

"If I almost pa.s.sed away from homesickness in one night, how should I have borne it for--for longer?" answered Nancy, flushing.

"We missed you terribly," was all Billie could trust herself to say as she hurried to her room to take off her wet things.

Just then Onoye sounded the j.a.panese chimes to announce that luncheon was served and presently they were all a.s.sembled around the table.

But never a word did Nancy say about the torn letter which some one had so carefully pieced together.

CHAPTER XV.

THE ANCIENT CITY OF SLEEP.

"How would four young parties and another younger party, who claims to be old and rheumatic, but isn't, like to take a trip?" asked Mr. Campbell one evening at dinner.

Through the inky curtain of blackness that had for days overcast the skies the sun had at last burst with a radiance that seemed twice as great to unaccustomed eyes. From somewhere a life-giving breeze had sprung up and driven away the vapors. Back rolled the walls of mist and fog, and in a few hours the world became a smiling paradise of flowers and of gra.s.s and foliage of intensest green.

Immediately the aspect of life changed. Four young parties and a party who claimed to be old but wasn't were eager for anything that would furnish variety after the late monotony of existence.