Page:The Wreck.djvu/156

This page needs to be proofread.

CHAPTER XXXII

Ramesh was now in treaty for a house which stood in an isolated position on the bank of the Ganges. To fetch his belongings and to go through the necessary formalities which would enable him to enrol himself at the Ghazipur bar, a journey to Calcutta was neces- sary; but he shrank from revisiting the city. The memory of a certain street there was like a weight pressing on his mind. He was still fast in the toils of duplicity and yet matters had come to such a pitch that he could delay no longer to accept his position as Kamala's husband with all that it entailed.

Unable to face the inevitable, he kept on postponing his departure.

As space in the little bungalow was limited Kamala had quarters in Chakrabartti's zenana, while Ramesh was housed in the outer room, and he and Kamala hardly ever saw each other. Sailaja confided to Kamala how much she regretted this unavoidable separation.

"Why make such a fuss about it?" asked Kamala. "It's nothing so very dreadful!"

Sailaja laughed, "What a hard-hearted young woman you are ! You can't deceive me with that kind of pretence ! I know quite well what you're thinking!"

"Now tell me the truth," began Kamala, "suppos- ing Bipin Babu didn't come near you for a couple of days would you- ?"

"Why, he couldn't stay away from me for two days !" vaunted Sailaja, and she proceeded to cite in- stances of Bipin Babu's uxoriousness. She recounted

152 

Digitized by Google
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.