I went further down and stood motionless where the water reached my neck. I could not get up and come home till the man had left."
"Don't come again," he said in abstraction and again fixed his mind on Shankar's* Commentary.
Night advanced far. Even then, Chandra Shekhar was absorbed in the discussion of Prama,* Maya,* Sphota* and Apaurusheyatya.* Shaibalini was sleeping soundly on a bed, in one corner of the room, after she had kept, as usual, her husband's dishes close by him and had taken her own meals. She had Chandra Shekhar's permission to do so every day; for he used to study far in the night and could not take his meals early and retire.
All on a sudden, the hoarse voice of an owl came from the roof of the house. Chandra Shekhar perceiving that the night had far advanced closed his book and putting it in the proper place, stood up to shake off his drowsiness. His eyes fell upon the beauty of nature which smiled in the moonlight, beyond the open window of his room. The radiant beams of the moon had fallen on the beautiful face of the sleeping Shaibalini. Chandra Shekhar with a delightful heart saw that smiling face and thought, a lily had bloomed on the waters
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