own stupidity and want of aptitude. And even when Mahendra had once so far forgotten himself as to compare her unfavourably with Binodini and say unkind things, she had accepted his rebuke in all humility.
Asha would restlessly hover near about her mother-in-law's room, and sometimes timidly linger in the doorway. She did so want to feel that she was of some use in the house, to show that she could do something, but no one seemed to want her assistance. She knew not how to express herself in work, how to claim her place in the household; her diffidence kept her wandering on its outskirts. Some undefined pain in her inmost being seemed to be growing more and more acute everyday, but she could not tell what her sorrow was, nor what it was she feared. She felt that she was spoiling the whole fabric of her life, but how that fabric had grown round her, what made it crumble at her touch, how it was to be made whole again, she had no idea. At times she felt she wanted to wail out aloud: "How useless, how unworthy, how incomparably stupid am I!"
In byegone days how happily the time had passed when Mahendra and Asha were together in a corner of their room, sometimes in talk, sometimes in silence. Now-a-days, in Binodini's absence, Mahendra could not find a word to say when alone with Asha, while the silence made him feel awkward.
One day seeing the servant-boy carrying a letter, Mahendra asked him: "Whose letter is that?"
"Vihari Babu's."
"Who gave it you?"
"The young mistress—" (meaning Binodini).
"Let's see!" said Mahendra as he took it from his hand. He felt strongly tempted to tear open the cover and read it, but after turning it over and over he tossed it back to the boy.
Had he opened the letter he would have found in it: "Pishima will not take her barley-water. May I try her with gruel instead?" Binodini never asked Mahendra's advice about the invalid's requirements—her reliance was on Vihari.
After pacing the verandah for a while Mahendra went into his room, and as he did so a picture, hanging crooked with one of the supporting strings giving way, caught his eye. "You never notice any thing" he flared up at Asha, "and that's why everything is going to rack and ruin." The flowers that Binodini had brought from the Dum-dum picnic and placed in a little metal vase, had faded away, but were still there. Any other day Mahendra would not have been troubled by such a trifle, to-day he was furious. "These must remain as they are till Binodini comes to throw them away, I suppose!" he sneered as he flung the vase with the flowers out on to the landing whence it rolled clanging down the stairs.
"Why is not Asha all I want her to be?" "Why cannot Asha do things as I should like them to be done?" "Why does not Asha keep me straight in the path of wedded life; why will her defects and weaknesses distract me away from it?" These were the grievances which were tossing about in his mind.
When he came to himself and glanced at Asha, he found her standing dazed, clutching the bed-post, with ashen face and trembling lips. As he looked up, she fled from the room. Mahendra slowly went out and brought back the vase. He then dropped into the chair at his desk in the corner, and sat there long, his elbows on the table, his face hidden in his hands.
It grew dark, the lamps were lit, but Asha came not. Mahendra began to rapidly walk up and down the terrace. It struck nine, a silence as of midnight descended on Mahendra's deserted room—yet Asha had not come.
At last Mahendra sent for her; and with hesitating steps she came upstairs and stood at the doorway leading to the terrace. Mahendra went up to her and drew her to his bosom—and in a moment her pent-up tears flooded her husband's breast—it seemed as if she would never get done, as if her sobs would break out of her in one great cry. Mahendra kissed her hair and kept her held close to him, as the silent stars looked on.
When they had retired, Mahendra sitting on the bed, said: "It's my turn to be on night-duty at the hospital, so for a time I must take some rooms near the college."
"Still so angry with me," thought Asha, "that he heeds must go away? So incorrigible am I that my husband is driven out of the house. Oh, why am I not dead!"
But there was nothing of anger in
