There was in her speech and bearing a courtly dignity which pleased him, and he led her on to talk of the time when her grandfather, the old Prince, was living at the house. While she spoke the sound of running water reached them. It came from the buried spring near the eastern wall of the house; the workmen had just finished clearing it. It seemed like the voice of one suddenly aroused from lethargy by the mention of old familiar names. 'I, that was mistress here, scarce know the way from room to room; only this crystal spring remembers still and meditates the ancient secrets of the house.' She murmured this poem softly to herself and did not know that he had heard what she said. But it had not escaped him; indeed, he thought it by no means lacking in beauty and power of expression.
As he stood looking down at her, full of interest and compassion, the aged lady thought him more beautiful than anything she could have ever dreamed would exist in the world. He now drove over to his hermitage at Saga and arranged for the Reading of the Samantabhadra Sūtra and the meditations on Amitābha and Shakyamuni to take place every month on the fourteenth, fifteenth and last days respectively, together with other rituals for which he now made the final arrangements. The decoration of the Buddha Hall and the provision of the necessary altars and furniture was then discussed and various duties assigned to those in charge of the place. He returned to Ōi by moonlight. It was strangely like those nights of old when he used to visit her at the house on the hill. It seemed natural enough that, as in those days, she should bring out a zithern (it was indeed his own, which he had given her), and soon, stirred by his presence and the beauty of the night, she began to finger the instrument. He noticed at once that true to her promise she had not altered the tuning since that last night at Akashi, and it seemed as though all
