ou what will be my position?"

Shrinking at this, Debendra said: "Let us go. Would it not be well
that I should renew acquaintance with your new _grihini_?"

The burning glance of hate cast on him by Hira at these words,
Debendra failed to see in the uncertain light.

Hira said: "How will you get to see her?"

"By your kindness it will be accomplished," said Debendra.

"Then do you remain here on the watch; I will bring her to you."

With these words Hira went out of the summer-house. Proceeding some
distance, she stopped beneath the shelter of a tree and gave way to a
burst of sobbing: then went on into the house--not to Kunda Nandini,
but to the _darwans_ (gatekeepers), to whom she said--

"Come quickly; there is a thief in the garden."

Then Dobe, Chobe, Paure, and Teowari, taking thick bamboo sticks in
their hands, started off for the flower-garden. Debendra, hearing from
afar the sound of their clumsy, clattering shoes, and seeing their
black, napkin-swathed chins, leaped from the summer-house and fled in
haste. Teowari and Co. ran some distance, but they could not catch
him; yet he did not get off scot-free. We cannot certainly say whether
he tasted the bamboo, but we have heard that he was pursued by some
very abusive terms from the mouths of the _darwans_; and that his
servant, having had a little of his brandy, in gossip the next day
with a female friend remarked--

"To-day, when I was rubbing the Babu with oil, I saw a bruise on his
back."

Returning home, Debendra made two resolutions: the first, that while
Hira remained he would never again enter the Datta house; the second,
that he would retaliate upon Hira. In the end he had a frightful
revenge upon her. Hira's venial fault received a heavy punishment, so
heavy that at sight of it even Debendra's stony heart was lacerated.
We will relate it briefly later.

CHAPTER XXVII.

BY THE ROADSIDE.

It is one of the worst days of the rainy season; not once had the sun
appeared, only a continuous downpour of rain. The well metalled road
to Benares was a mass of slush. But one traveller was to be seen, his
dress was that of a _Brahmachari_ (an ascetic): yellow garments, a
bead chaplet on his neck, the mark on the forehead, the bald crown
surrounded by only a few white hairs, a palm leaf umbrella in one
hand, in the other a brass drinking-vessel. Thus the _Brahmachari_
travelled in the soaking rain through the dark day, followed by a
night as b