CHAPTER VIII.
It is nearly a month since our night of pleasure at the temple fête of the thousands of lanterns, and I have been in terrible trouble.
Something has happened to Mousmé, and till that catastrophe—to me it seemed nothing less—I never realized what she was to me.
It was so sudden.
I had left her in the morning, bright as the sunshine which forced its way through the bamboo and paper shoji, and, filtering thus, fell in golden, thread-like rays like spun silk upon the floor. The last I saw of her was a tiny figure upon the balcony as I turned the corner of the road, blowing kisses to me with one hand, and waving a huge bunch of crimson lotus in the other,
