Srikanta
unbroken chain of experience extending throughout my countless births and re-births even unto this life, lying concealed in the recesses of my mind, enabled me to see the inward meaning of her conduct that day. Whatever the cause of my intuition, I did not need to be told that her attitude was not really one of indifference but rather the silent remonstrance of secret love. Perhaps it was a suspicion of this that had made me omit from my story, as I told it to the prince, the fact of her having sent men to the cremation-grounds to look for me. She had left the tent in the silence at the end of my story. It was a silent accusation. I had not told her, when I returned at dawn, anything of what had happened. What she had had the exclusive right to hear first, she had heard from her remote seat, behind all the others, as it were by accident. This silent accusation of love tasted so sweet, so exquisite a thing, to my unaccustomed experience, that I retired into solitude like a child who has found an entrancing piece of confection, to suck the very marrow of its sweetness.
I should have gone to sleep in the afternoon, I even began to feel drowsy, but the hope that Ratan would come continually broke in upon thoughts of slumber and dispelled them. The day lengthened, but Ratan did not come. I had been so confident of his coming, that when at last I rose and saw that the afternoon was far advanced, I could not resist the conclusion that he had come and gone back, thinking nte asleep. Silly ass! if he had come, would he not have called me? The feeling that the silent hours of the afternoon had gone for naught worried me, but I felt little doubt that he would come again after dusk, perhaps with a request, or a note, or something which he would slip into my hand. But how
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