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THE WRECK

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flower-bowl was the only ornament that she retained. After bathing she would dress in spotless white and seat herself on the floor, while the sunshine poured unobstructed through the open windows and flooded the room, and she steeped her whole being in the light and the winds of heaven.

Annada Babu could not rise to the same height of religious ecstasy as his daughter, but the old man re- joiced at the radiance that her self-imposed discipline imparted to Hemnalini's face. When Nalinaksha vis- ited the house it was on the floor of Hemnalini's room that the trio sat and held converse.

Jogendra voiced his disapproval loudly. "I don't know what has come over you all," he snarled. "Be- tween the three of you you've made nearly the whole house holy ground; there's hardly a spot where a fel- low like me can set foot."

There was a time when Hemnalini would have been deeply offended by her brother's taunts, but now, though Annada Babu's temper occasionally gave way under the lash of Jogendra's sarcasm, Hemnalini fol- lowed Nalinaksha's lead and merely smiled sweetly. She had at last found a sure, unfailing, and complete support, and to be ashamed would have been contemp- tible weakness. That her acquaintances derided her austerity as mere eccentricity she knew full well, but her trust in Nalinaksha and her admiration for his ideals armed her against all mankind and she faced the world unabashed.

One morning she had bathed and finished her devo- tions and was sitting in the solitude of her chamber before the open window absorbed in meditation when Annada Babu unered in Nalinaksha. Hemnalini's heart was full to over-flowing. With a gesture of reverence, due only to an honoured parent or a ven- erated preceptor, she prostrated herself before each in