aring her delicate fingers out
at home, he plying his pen in the street, until one day a dancing-girl from
Lucknow called him to her house to write an important missive on her
behalf. This chance acquaintance ripened into a friendship that boded no
good for Imtiazan: for within a month, amid specious statements of
lucrative employment and fair promises of future well-being, he bade her
prepare to leave the small room and accompany him to a larger house,
fronting a main thoroughfare, which, said he, would henceforth be their
home. The sight of the unscreened windows of her new home struck a chill
into Imtiazan's heart; and when the door opened and she was met by three
elderly Muhammadans who saluted her as their "Bai-Saheb," fear took
possession of her soul. The thin red cases hanging on the wall told her
that the men were musicians; and in response to the mute appeal in her eyes
her husband bade her with almost brutal candour prepare to adopt her old
profession of dancing and singing in order to save him from the hateful
duties of a public letter-writer.

For two days Imtiazan tended by the musicians and their wives was a prey to
the blackest despair, and then deeming it useless to protest, she set
herself courageously to do her husband's bidding and to dance as she had
danced in the house of Gowhar Jan. But she little knew the true depths of
her husband's selfishness. "Money comes not fast enough" was his perpetual
cry and he urged her, at first gently but with ever-increasing vehemence,
to sink still lower. The memory of the past and who knows what higher
instinct helped her to withstand his sordid demands for many days; but at
length, realizing that this was _kismet_ and tired of the perpetual
upbraiding, she consented to do his bidding. So for three weary years the
waters closed over Imtiazan. One day she awoke to find that her husband had
crowned his villainy by decamping with her valuables and all her savings.
She followed and found him, and, pressing into his hand a little extra
money that he had in his hurry overlooked, she bade him a bitter farewell
for ever. She rested a day or two to get herself properly divorced from
him, and then returned alone to the hated life in Bombay.

There Fortune smiled upon her and wealth poured into her lap. Two years
later by dint of careful inquiry she discovered that the stern-faced woman
who had abandoned her in the Lahore market was her uncle's wife, now
widowed and in povert