Even after she awoke, the force that had gone into her hands to strangle him was still vividly apparent in her clenched fists; she sat up in bed appalled at herself and stayed for a while hugging her body with her arms.

Etsuko’s face as she lay on her side sleeping soundly in the bed next to Tomo’s stood out in pale profile in the light from the low wick of the bedside lamp. Tomo felt a pang of love for the innocence of the sleeping face that formed so striking a contrast with its comparatively grownup expression when she was awake. So alert was Tomo to the danger of spoiling her that Etsuko tended to find her affection elsewhere, attaching herself more to maids and other friendly adults than to her mother; little did she imagine how Tomo now, wakening in the small hours from a dream of horror, lay bathed in sweat, gazing with tearful eyes at her daughter as though she were a solitary spring in a scorching desert.

On the day that Suga and her mother came to the Kusumi’s to meet them for the first time, Etsuko, who had been told by her mother and Kin that they would be taking Suga back to Fukushima with them, seemed captivated in her childish way with Suga’s beauty.

‘Isn’t she pretty?’ she said. ‘She’s the girl in the photo, isn’t she? What’s she going to do at home?’

‘She’s going to help your father,’ said Tomo, momentarily averting her eyes.

‘You mean, like Seki?’

‘Yes … Yes, I suppose so.’

Etsuko fell silent, sensing that she would be scolded if she inquired further. Yoshi also, who had been sternly bidden to silence by Tomo, said nothing to her about Suga.

However complex her emotions, Tomo was obliged to keep them hidden while interviewing Suga’s mother. The mother, who unlike Suga was small with a snub nose and round face, clearly felt intense guilt towards Suga at letting her go for the sake of money, and talked in great detail to Tomo as to one who was her only source of hope, telling her how Suga was not strong physically and even confiding that she was ‘not really a woman’ yet.

‘But now I feel much better,’ she said to Kin, ‘seeing what a kind, decent mistress she’ll have. The lady says that even if the master turns against Suga in the future, she’ll be sure to look after her interests.’