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CHAPTER XXVII

KAmALA awoke while it was still dark and looking round perceived that she was alone; it was a minute or two before she realised where she was. She dragged herself from her couch, opened the door, and looked out. A thin blanket of white mist lay over the still water, a grey pallor overspread the darkness, and there was a glimmer of dawn in the sky behind the trees that lined the eastern bank. As she gazed the white sails of fishing boats began to dot the steely-hued water.

There was a dull ache in Kamala's heart, the source of which she could not divine. Why was the aspect of the misty autumn morning so forbidding? Whence came those sobs that welled up in her breast, choked her utterance, and threatened to bring the tears to her eyes? Why did she brood now over her forlorn condi- tion? Twenty-four hours ago she had been oblivious of the fact that both she and her husband were orphans, that she had no kin or companion of her own. What had happened in the meantime to bring her loneliness home to her? Was not Ramesh alone sufficient prop and stay? Why was she weighed down with a sense of the vastness of the universe and her own insignifi- cance?

As she lingered by the open door, the bosom of the river began to glow like a stream of shimmering gold. The crew resumed their labours and the engines clanked again. The rattle of the hawse-chain and the creaking of the windlass awoke the village urchins betimes and sent them scampering down to the bank.

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