foolish girl would ever care to circulate this nonsense? Surely it was she who did it to be revenged on her by branding her with infamy. She remembered to have heard that she had called her a thief. She said she would never forgive her, but wear it in her heart till she had humbled her pride.
The reader by now knows Rohini well enough to feel that she is up to anything. She went and borrowed from a neighbour a silk cloth wrought with beautiful designs in gold and silver, and a suit of gilt ornaments. With the cloth and the ornaments made up into a bundle she left and bent her steps in the direction of Krishnakanta's house. It was near dark, and she entered the house by the back-door. She then went and stepped quietly into Gobindalal's room where Bhramar was alone and weeping. Seeing Rohini she recoiled just as she would have recoiled at the sight of a serpent in her way. "You thieving, wicked, dangerous woman, what do you want here in my room?" she cried. "Have you come into this house again to steal?"
Rohini cursed her in her mind. Aloud she said, and with a coolness which was extremely provoking, "No, not to steal. I don't need to steal now. I must confess that your husband is very kind to me. He has given me this valuable cloth, and these ornaments here whose worth is about three thousand rupees. The rumour that he has given me some seven thousand rupees' worth of ornaments is false."
"Get out of my room, you serpent. How dare you add insult to injury?" exclaimed Bhramar.
Rohini, without paying any heed to her words, hastened to put before her the ornaments after undoing the bundle.
This was so aggravating and insulting to her that she struck them with her foot in great indignation, and scattered them about on the floor. "Out, you shameless impudent woman, pack out this instant," she cried.
Rohini very quickly picked up the ornaments, put them together and withdrew without uttering another word.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Bhramar could get no sleep at all, and she passed a very anxious and restless night. Before morning dawned she engaged herself in writing a letter to her husband. When she was married she was an unfledged and unlettered girl of eight. Her husband taught her how to read and write; but she was never an apt pupil, and consequently she had not been able to make any very great progress. However, she could read and write tolerably well. This day as she wrote she blotted and blundered much, for she felt very uneasy in her mind.
Her letter we give below in a readable form.
"That day when you returned from the garden after eleven o'clock at night, I inquired what made you stay away till so late as that. You refused to tell me. When I insisted on knowing you said you would tell me, but not until a couple of years had passed. But I have got your secret. I wish I had never known it. Rohini called yesterday to show me the cloth and the ornaments you have given her. Such a wicked impudent woman she is. She did it to hurt and insult me, I know. But I bore with her and let her go unharmed.
"What will you say now? I had unbounded faith in you, you know I had. My heart is broken. I wish we should not meet when you come. Would you kindly drop a line to say when you are going to come home? I request this favour because I want to go to my father's house before your return home. I shall know how to get your uncle to consent to my going."
In due course Gobindalal received his wife's letter. When he had read it, he was as much pained as surprised. It was like a bolt from the blue. The language in which it was couched made him for a moment doubt that it was written by his wife. But there could be no question about it, for he well knew her hand.
By the same post there had come a few more letters which be afterwards opened and read one after the other. Among these was one from Brahmananda, who wrote as follows:—
My Dear Sir,
I am obliged to communicate with you on a very painful subject. A rumour is afloat (though I do not believe one word of it) that you are in a criminal intrigue with my niece, Rohini, and that you have given seven thousand rupees' worth of ornaments to her. This is scandalous, and injurious to us. But who do you think
