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THE WRECK

can be seen and handled, but my gratitude is an intangible thing for which you must take my word. Everlastingly in your debt.

Ramesh.

Hemnalini duly received this letter, yet neither she nor Ramesh alluded to it.

The rainy season was at hand. The rains reserve their chief benefits for the countryside and they are not an unmixed blessing to town-dwellers. All ef- forts are concentrated on keeping out the wet, and to this end householders dose their windows and patch up their roofs, wayfarers raise their umbrellas and tram- cars their screens, yet in no time all are wallowing in damp and mud. River, mountain, forest, and field hail the downpour with shouts of welcome as a friend. In their natural environment we see the rains in their true magnificence, and there is no jarring note in the fes- tivities when heaven and earth unite their voices to greet the advent of the rain-clouds.

Young lovers are like the mountains. The constant downpour only accentuated Annada Babu's indigestion but it could not damp the spirits of Ramesh and Hem- nalini. As often as not the rain prevented Ramesh from attending Court. Day after day it came down so heavily that Hemnalini would exclaim anxiously, "Ra- mesh Babu, how will you get home in weather like this?"

"It's really nothing," Ramesh would reply shame- facedly; "Ill manage somehow or other."

"What's the use of getting wet and taking cold?" Hemnalini would urge, "'better stay and have a meal with us,"

Ramesh was not nervous about his health. His friends and relations had never noticed in him any tendency to take cold easily, still on rainy days he sub- mitted with surprising readiness to Hemnalini's dic- tates, and it was considered sinful rashness on his

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