Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1911-01-03
CHAPTER I.

OF the steel deck as the black ocean levia-
than swept on toward its harbor resting
place.
! All that japanese April day she had
been in state of tremulous excitement.
She had crept from her berth at dawn
to see the hazy sun come up in Rosicru-
! clan flush as weirdly soft as a mirage, to
strain her eyes for the first filmy feather
of land. Long before the graygreen
wisp showed on the horizon the sight of a
numbering junk with It's square sail laced
across with white stripes, and Its bronze
seamen, with white loin-cloth and sweat
band about the forehead. naked and
thewed like sculptures as they swayed
| from the clumsy tiller. had sent thrill
through her. And as the first far peaks
etched themselves on the robin's-egg blue.
as impalpable and ethereal as a perfume.
she felt warm drops coming with a rush
10 her eyes.
For Japan, every sight and sound Of 1t,
had been woven with the earliest imagin-
| ings of Barbaras orphaned life. Her faith
er she had never seen. Her mother she
remembered only a vague. widowed
| figure. In Japan they two had met and
had married, and alter a single year her
mother had returned to her own place
and people broken-hearted and alone In
the month OF her return Barbara had been
owed the care Of her young gfrlhood, had
died. and Barbara had found herself, at %.
mistress of liberal fortune and of her
own future. Japan had always exercised
potent spell over her Imagination. She
pictured it as a land OF strange glowing
1 trees, of queer costumes and weird, fan
tastic buildings More than all, it was
the land of her mothers life-romance,
where her father had loved and died.
1 - 81
uncle, her. mothers brother, was Episco-
pal bishop OF Tokyo. He was returning
now from half years visit in America,
and this fact, coupled with an invitation
from Patricia cambridge. the daughter of
the American ambassador, with whom
Barbara had chummed one California
! winter, had constituted an opportunity
wholly alluring.
! shadow fell beside her and she turn
ed 1t was her uncle. His clean-shaven
face beamed at her over his clerical collar.
isn't 1t glorious?" she breathed. It's
better than champagne! It's like pins
and needles in the tips of your fingers!
| There's positively an odor in the air like
camellias And did any one ever see such
! colors? She pointed to the shore dead
ahead, now serrated background Of
deep tones, swimming in the infinite gold
of the tropic afternoon.
| Bishop Randolph was a bachelor, past
middle age. rudy and with eyes soft
ened by habitual good humor.
Japan gets in the blood" he said mus
ingly II often think of the old lady
who committed suicide at Nikko. She
left letter which said: by favor Of the
gods am too dishonorably old to hope
| to revisit this jewel-glorious spot, so l
prefer augu&tly to remain here forever!
have had something OF as same feeling,
sometimes / remember ret the first
time / saw the coast. That was Is years
ago. We watched 1t together-your faith
er and I-just as we two are doing now. :"
She looked at him with sudden eager
ness, for of his own accord he had never
before spoken to her OF her dead father.
The latter had always seemed a very
real parsonage. but how little she knew
about him! The aunt who had brought
her up-her mother's sister-haA newer
/ talked OF him, sEd her uncle she had
seen but twice since she had been old
enough to wonder. But. little by little,
/ cleaning a fact here and there, she had
constructed a slender history of him. It
| told OF mingled blood, a birthplace on a
Mediterranean island and a gypsy child
hood. There was a thin sheaf of yellowed
manuscript In her possession that had
been left among her mothers scanty pa
pers, a fragment of an old diary OF his.
| Many leaves had been ruthlessly cut from
It, but in the pages that were left she had
found bits of fotsam broken memory
pictures of his own mother which bad
strangely touched her, of a bitter youth
in England and America, vershadowed
! by the haunting fear of blindness, Of
quests to West Indian cities, told in
phrases that dripped liquid gold and sun
shine. The voyage to Japan had been
made on the same vessel that carried her
| uncle, and they had thus become COM
rades The latter had been an enthusiast
| tic young missionary, one of few chos-
| en- spirits sent to defend a far field-case-
ment thrown forward by the batteries 'of
Christendom. His sister had come out
to visit him and few months later had
married his friend
Such was the story, as Barbara knew
1t, of her father and mother-a love
chapter which had soon closed with a
| PARKWAY grave by the Inland Sea. Her
fancy had made of her father a pa
| thetic figure. As q child, she had
dreamed OF some day placing a monu-
ment to his memory in the Japanese
capital. She possessed only one pic
ture of him, a tiny profile photograph
which she wore always in a locket en-
graved with her name. 1t showed a
dark face. clean-shaven, finely chiseled
and passionate, with the large. full eye
of the dreamer. She had liked to think
1t looked like the paintings of St John.
Perhaps this thought had caused the pro-
jected monument to take the form OF a
| Christian chapel. From a nebulous idea.
the plan had become bundle Of blue
prints, which she had sent to her uncle.
with the request that he purchase for her
a suitable site and begin the building. He
had done this before his visit to America
4 and now the chapel was completed, save
in one particular-the memorial window of
rich, stained glass slowed at that moment
In the ships hold. The bishop had not
seen 1t. From some feeling which she had
not tried to analyze, Barbara had said
nothing to him OF the chapels especial
Significance. Now, however, at this un-
| expected difference, the feeling frayed
and she told him all of her plan.
He gazed at her moment in a startled
fashion, then looked away, his hand shad-
ling his eyes. When she finished there was
a long pause which made her wonder. She
touched his arm.
you were very fond OF father. weren't
your"
Yes" he said. in tone oddly re-
strained
"And was my mother with you when
he fell in love with her?
YES" and after pause: II married
them"
''Then they went to Nagasaki," she said
softly, ''and there-he died. You weren' t