suddenly stopped short as she came up to the door, and with a hasty ejaculation she pulled her veil low over her face and hurried away.
There was a great commotion in the village. The elders in their evening gathering place decided that this sort of thing could not be allowed. The goings on at Calcutta might have been ignored. But to have dared to bring Mahendra to the village by writing letter after letter—this brazen openness was too much! The shameless hussy must be sent out of the village.
The next morning Binodini was sure that a reply from Vihari would come. But there was no letter. "What hold has Vihari on me?" Binodini began to ask herself. "Why am I here at his word? Why did I give him to understand that my whole life was his to command? The only need he has for me is to use me to save his beloved Asha. I am to have no wants, no claims of my own, not even a line of a letter—so mean, so contemptible am I!" A jealous envy welled up in Binodini's breast as seated stiffly in her room she continued her meditations: "I might have borne it all for another, but certainly not for Asha! This exile, this poverty, this scandal, this contempt, this life-long emptiness—all this for Asha! Why did I submit to be cheated so? Why did I not fulfil my vow of destruction? Oh fool, fool that I have been! Why did I fall in love with Vihari?"
Her aged relative, just back from her daughter's, broke in upon her thoughts with: "What's this I hear, you wretched minx?"
"What you have heard is true," rejoined Binodini quietly.
"Then what made you bring your shame to our neighbourhood—why did you come here?"
Binodini kept silent in her bitterness.
"Look here, child; you simply can't stay on here", continued the old woman. "My evil fate took away from me all whom I had of my own. Even that I've been able to bear and live through. But this sort of thing I'm not going to put up with. You've dragged our good name through the dust, you wretched girl. You must go away at once."
"I'll go at once", said Binodini as she stepped outside the room and stood at the door.
As she did so, Mahendra, unwashed, unkempt, came up to the outer gate. He had not had a morsel to eat nor a wink of sleep since his arrival last evening, his face was drawn, his eyes bloodshot. He had thought of making another attempt at inducing Binodini to go with him at daybreak, but the shock of Binodini's strangely contemptuous reply had made him hesitate. As the morning wore on and the time for the only day-train drew near, Mahendra had cast aside all questioning and misgiving and engaging a carriage driven off to Binodini's cottage. The courage of one who has taken an irrevocable step against social conventions was his—and with the courage had come also a wild joy driving away all doubt and despondency. The staring passers by seemed to him like so many earthen dolls.
Without glancing this way or that Mahendra marched straight up to the door where Binodini was standing and said: "Binod, I'm not such a coward as to leave you alone here to be reviled by these villagers. I must and shall take you away with me. If afterwards you choose to forsake me, do so, I'll not seek to hold you. I swear by yourself that it shall always be exactly as you wish. If you take pity on me, that'll be life to me—if not I'll take myself off your path. Many a time in my life have I been false to my trust but do not mistrust me to-day. We stand on the brink of chaos, this is not the time to utter falsehoods."
With unfluttered naturalness Binodini said: "Yes, you may take me along. Have you brought a carriage?
"I have."
Binodini's aged relative came out and said: "Mahendra, you may not know me, but we are kin. Your mother was a girl of this village and used to call me Aunt. May I ask you what you mean by this sort of thing? You have a wife at home; your mother is still with you. Yet you are carrying on in this mad way, lost to all shame. How will you even show your face again in society?"
This rather brought Mahendra down from the region into which he had exalted himself. He had a mother and a wife, and there was a thing called society. These simple truths seemed to come home to him with a new force. He had never dreamt of being reminded of these things in this out of the way village. To be stand-
