than he felt it must be true. In his agitation he went straight into his mother's room. That was also unlighted, but even in the dark it could be made out that Rajlakshmi was stretched on her bed. "What have you said to Binodini, mother?" was the angry Mahendra's abrupt inquiry.
Rajlakshmi.—"I've said nothing."
Mahendra.—"Then where is she."
Rajlakshmi.—"How can I tell?"
"You can't tell?" he sneered. "Very well I'm going after her. Wherever she may be, I'll find her." And Mahendra was off.
Rajlakshmi hastily left her bed and rushed after him crying, "Mahin, Mahin, don't go away like that, Mahin, just listen to a word from me."
But Mahendra was out of the house in a breath. In another second he was back at the door asking the porter: "Where is the young mistress?"
"I don't know, Sir, she didn't tell us where she was going."
"You dont know!" shouted Mahendra in his rage.
"No, Sir, I don't."
"Mother must have told them what to say," thought Mahendra. "Never mind, we'll see." He was then lost in the crowd in the gas-light-spotted night.
XXXVI
Vihari had not the habit of meditating about himself when alone at night. In fact he never thought of himself as a subject worth any thought. His studies, his work, his friends and the people he came across constantly occupied him; he found the greater satisfaction in giving the first place to the outside world. But one great shock had made his surroundings fall to pieces, and left him standing alone on the isolated peak of his suffering amidst the enveloping darkness. Since then he had begun to fear himself, and he tried heaping work upon work to allow this self no opportunity to obtrude.
But to-night he had no escape from his in-dwelling companion. He had come back the day before after escorting Binodini to her train, and ever since, his lacerated heart had been insistently drawing his whole attention withinwards, in the midst of his work, in the presence of his friends.
Depression and weariness for the first time overcame Vihari to-night. It was about 9 o'clock. The south breeze had been waxing impatient on the open terrace in front of Vihari's bed room. Vihari had pulled out a chair and was sitting on the terrace in the moonless darkness. He had not been teaching the boy Basanta this evening. His heart, like a child deserted by its mother, seemed stretching out its arms into the night, seeking from it some consolation, some companionship, some reminescence of the old affection-soothed life. The walls of his reserve, his unflinching steadfastness, had to-day crumbled away. His whole being seemed to be rushing towards those on whom he had resolved not to let his thoughts dwell. He had no strength left to obstruct its progress.
The whole of the long story from the beginning of his boyish friendship for Mahendra to its end, which like a many-coloured map variegated with its hills and plains and rivers, lay rolled up in his mind, he now held unfolded before himself. He recalled one by one how and when the little world on which he had reared his life had come in touch with other planets.
What had been the first disturbing influence? The blushing girlish face of Asha, radiant in the rays of the setting sun, shone out in reply against the outside darkness, and the auspicious blasts of wedding conches seemed to sound at the same time in his ears. This benign planet, coming up from some unknown region of the sky of his fate, had risen and stood between the two friends. It brought a foretaste of separation, and with it an obscure pain, which could not be expressed and should not even be silently harboured, and yet this separation and this pain were flooded and fulfilled with a sweet radiance, tinged with the warmth of a previously unknown expansion of heart.
This was followed by the saturnine planet which had next risen, breaking up and scattering the affection of the friends, the love of the wedded couple, the peace of the household. Vihari tried to repel this vision with a just and burning scorn. But how strange! the force of his repulsion became so weak, it could not reach its object! And that mysteriously fascinating luminary, with its dark and penetrating gaze, remained steadily shining at Vihari through the moonless night while the fitful
