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THE WRECK

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own room soothing her with an unceasing patter of baby-talk.

Saila followed exclaiming, "I'm beaten; you've won this time! I can't keep it up. Please, Kamala! take it. I'll never be rude to you again!"

She threw the letter down on the bed, rescued Umi from Kamala's clutches, and carried her off.

Kamala turned the envelope over and over, then opened it and began to read, but she had only glanced through the first lines when she flushed angrily and flung the letter from her. Then she mastered her first impulse of profound disgust, picked up the letter again, and read it through.

Whether she understood the whole of it or not is impossible to say but she felt as though she were handling some filthy thing and once more she threw the letter away. It was a proposal that she should make a home for a man who was not her husband! Fully cognisant of all the facts, Ramesh had bided his time to fling this insult at her. If after their arrival in Ghazipur her heart had warmed towards him did he imagine it was because he was Ramesh and not because he was — as she believed — her husband. Ra- mesh had jumped at conclusions and pity for an un- fortunate outcast had prompted him to write this love- letter. How could she now — or ever — dispel the mis- taken inference that he had drawn from her behaviour? Shame and disgust were destined to be her portion in life, though never since she came into the world had she sinned against a soul. She pictured "home" now as a dreadful monster ready to swallow her up and she cast about in vain for a way of escape. Two days ago she could never have conceived that Ramesh would appear such an ogre to her.

She was interrupted in her reflections by a cough from Umesh, who stood at the door. Getting no re- sponse from Kamala he called softly, "Mother!"

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