kiosks. His thoughts were back in Yokohama. It had been six weeks
before he could get away, six interminable weeks of misery and
self-loathing. He had shirked nothing and evaded nothing. Much had
been saved him by the discreet courtesy of the Japanese officials,
but the ordeal had left him with jangling nerves. Fortunately the
ship was nearly empty and the solitude he sought obtainable. He
felt an outcast. To have joined as he had always previously done
in the light-hearted routine of a crowded ship bent on amusements
and gaiety would have been impossible.

He sought mental relief in action and hours spent tramping the
lonely decks brought, if not relief, endurance.

And, always in the background, Yoshio, capable and devoted, stood
between him and the petty annoyances that inevitably occur in
travelling--annoyances that in his overwrought state would have
been doubly annoying--with a thoughtfulness that was silently
expressed in a dozen different devices for his comfort. That the
Jap knew a great deal more than he himself did of the tragedy that
had happened in the little house on the hill Craven felt sure, but
no information had been volunteered and he had asked for none. He
could not speak of it. And Yoshio, the inscrutable, would continue
to be silent. The perpetual reminder of all that he could wish to
forget Yoshio became, illogically, more than ever indispensable to
him. At first, in his stunned condition, he had scarcely been
sensible of the man's tact and care, but gradually he had come to
realize how much he owed to his Japanese servant. And yet that was
the least of his obligation. There was a greater--the matter of a
life; whatever it might mean to Craven, to Yoshio the simple
payment of a debt contracted years ago in California. That more