Page:The Wreck.djvu/255

THE WRECK

Annada Babu rose mechanically and made for the supper-room, but he had little appetite for food. In the belief that the clouds that darkened Hemnalini's life had lifted he had entertained high hopes for the future, and her rejection of the proposal had been a bitter disappointment to him. "So Hem has not been able to forget Ramesh after all," he sighed to himself.

It was his custom to retire to bed immediately after supper but this evening he lingered on. Instead of retiring he subsided into a deck-chair on the verandah and stared out across the garden at the deserted can- tonment road, deep in thought.

Finding him there Hemnalini took him playfully to task. "Now go to bed, please, dad; it's too cold for you out here."

"You had better go to bed yourself, dear. I shall be turning in soon."

But Hemnalini was not to be dismissed so easily. After a short pause she proceeded, "You're catching cold here, dad. Come into the sitting-room anyway."

Annada Babu rose from his chair and departed silently to bed.

Hemnalini had sternly resolved to exclude all thought ot Ramesh from her mind lest she should be tempted to swerve from her duty, and this self-deny- ing ordinance had cost her many a hard mental strug- gle. It only needed an external shock to cause the old wound to smart afresh. She had never been able definitely to map out her future course of conduct. Hence she had cast about her for means to sustain her in her resolve.

When she finally determined to regard Nalinaksha as her spiritual preceptor and to order her life ac- cording to his teaching she supposed that her object was attained. But when this marriage was proposed and she essayed to root out the old love from its

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