Five

With Mansaram's departure the house grew desolate. The two younger boys studied at that same school. Every day Nirmala asked them how Mansaram was. There was hope that on the holiday he would come; but when the holiday passed and he did not come, Nirmala began to grow distressed. She had made him ladoos of moong dal. On Monday morning she gave the ladoos to Bhungi and sent her to the school. At nine o'clock Bhungi returned. Mansaram had sent the ladoos back exactly as they were.

Nirmala asked, "Is he any better than before, eh?"

"Better — no, he isn't any better," said Bhungi. "He's grown even thinner."

"Is he not well, then?"

"That I didn't ask, mistress — why should I lie? Yes — the bearer there happens to be my brother-in-law. He was saying that your young master eats almost nothing. He gets up after eating two little rotis, and then eats nothing all day. He is forever reading."

"Did you not ask why he was sending the ladoos back?"

"Mistress, why should I lie? — that I quite forgot to ask. Yes, this he did say: 'Don't ever come here again, nor bring anything for me, and tell your mistress not to send me any letters or notes. Let no one send any message to me through the boys.' And he said one thing that I cannot bring myself to say — and then he began to weep."

"What was the thing? Tell me."

"What shall I say — he was saying, 'Cursed be my living!' Saying just that, he began to weep."

A cold sigh escaped Nirmala's lips. She felt as though her heart were sinking within her. Every fibre of her being began to cry out in anguish. She could not sit there any longer. She went and lay down on the bed, hiding her face, and wept bitterly. "He too has come to know." Again and again this voice echoed in her innermost being — "He too has come to know. O God, what will happen now?" The fire of suspicion in which she was burning to ashes now blazed up with a hundredfold force. For herself she had no anxiety. What hope of happiness was now left in life, that she should crave it? She had quieted her mind with the thought that this was the expiation of her past deeds. What soul could be so shameless as to live long in such a state? Upon the altar of duty she had offered up her life and all its desires. Her heart wept continually, yet her face had to be filled with the colour of laughter. Before one whose very face she had no wish to see, she had to laugh and chatter. The body whose touch felt to her like the cold touch of a serpent — who can know what disgust, what searing inward pain she felt at being embraced by it? At such times her only wish was that the earth would split open and she be swallowed into it. But until now all this mockery had been confined to herself alone. She had given up all anxiety for herself; but now the problem had become exceedingly terrible. She could not, with her own eyes, watch Mansaram's self-torment. The very thought of the effect this accusation might have upon a high-spirited, courageous youth like Mansaram made her very soul tremble. Now, however many suspicions might fall upon her, even if she should have to take her own life, she could not sit silent. She became frantic to save Mansaram. She resolved to strip off the cloak of restraint and shame and fling it away.

Before going to the courthouse after his meal, the lawyer would always meet her once. The time of his coming had arrived. "He must be just about to come" — thinking this, Nirmala went and stood at the door and began to wait for him. But what was this? He was going out by the other way. "The carriage is harnessed and has come round" — this order he usually gave from here. Then would he not come today? Would he go straight out without coming inside? No — this would not be allowed to happen. She said to Bhungi, "Go and call the master. Say there is an urgent matter — let him hear it."

Munshiji was just ready to leave. Receiving this message, he came inside; but, instead of entering the room, he asked from a distance, "What is the matter, dear? Tell me quickly — I have to go off on urgent business. A little while ago a letter came from the headmaster, saying that Mansaram has come down with fever, and that it would be better if I treated him at home. So I shall go to the courthouse by way of the school. You have nothing particular to say to me, have you?"

It was as though a thunderbolt fell upon Nirmala. A fierce struggle broke out between the rush of her tears and her voice. Each was bent on coming forth first. Of the two, neither would draw back a single step. From the weakness of her voice and the strength of her tears it was not hard to judge who would hold the field if this struggle went on a moment longer. At last both came forth together; but the instant they were out, the strong overpowered the weak. Only this much escaped her lips: "It was nothing particular. You are going that way in any case."

"I had asked the boys," said Munshiji, "and they said that yesterday he was sitting and studying — heaven knows what has happened to him today."

Nirmala said, trembling with agitation, "All this is your doing."

Munshiji, his brow darkening, said, "My doing? What am I doing?"

"Ask your own heart."

"I only thought," said Munshiji, "that here his mind was not on his studies; there, among the other boys, he was bound to study willy-nilly. That was no bad thing — what have I done?"

"Think well," said Nirmala. "Was it for that you sent him there? Was there nothing else in your mind?"

Munshiji hesitated a little, and, to hide his own weakness, made an effort to smile, and said, "What else could there be? Come — think it out for yourself."

"Well, let that be," said Nirmala. "Now be so good as to bring him back this very day. There is danger of his illness worsening if he stays there. Here, no one else can nurse him as well as Sister can."

After a moment she lowered her head and said, "If it is on my account that you do not wish to bring him, then send me away to my parents' home. I shall live there in peace."

Munshiji gave no answer to this. He went out, and in a moment the carriage set off towards the school.

O mind! How strange is your motion — how full of mystery, how impenetrable. How swiftly you change colour! In this art you are accomplished. Even a firework spinning-wheel takes some little while to change its colours; but you do not need even a hundred-thousandth part of that time to change your hue. Where but an instant before there had been tenderness, there suspicion now took its seat once more.

He was thinking — "Has the boy not perhaps made a pretence of it?"

For two days Mansaram remained sunk in deep anxiety. Again and again he remembered his mother; neither food nor study pleased him. He was, as it were, utterly transformed. Two days passed, and though he was living in the hostel he did not do the work that the schoolmasters had set to be brought from home. The consequence was that he had to stand on the bench. What had never happened before, happened today. He had to endure even this unbearable humiliation.

On the third day, sunk in these same anxieties, he was reasoning with his mind: "Where in the world has my mother alone died? Stepmothers are all of this same kind. Nothing new is happening to me. Now I ought, like a man, to do my work with redoubled labour, and keep my parents content however content can be kept. If I win the scholarship this year, I shall have no need to take anything from home at all. How many boys, by their own strength alone, attain great degrees and distinctions! What is the use of weeping and cursing the name of fate?"

Just then Jiaram came and stood there.

Mansaram asked, "How are things at home, Jia? The new mother must be very pleased?"

"I do not know the state of her mind," said Jiaram, "but ever since you came away, she has not eaten a single meal. Whenever you look, she is weeping. When Father comes, then, to be sure, she begins to laugh. After you came away, I too packed up my own books in the evening. I wanted to come and live here with you. That witch Bhungi went and told Mother. Father was sitting there; right before him Mother came and snatched away my books, and said, weeping, 'If you too go away, who will be left in this house? If it is because of me that you boys are all fleeing the house, then — there — let me be the one to go away somewhere.' I was already in a temper, and now Father was not there either, so I said angrily, 'Why should you go away anywhere? It is your house — live in it at your ease. We are the strangers; once we are gone, then you will have nothing but ease and comfort.'"

"You spoke well — very well indeed," said Mansaram. "At this she must have flown into a still greater rage, and gone and complained to Father."

"No, none of that happened," said Jiaram. "The poor thing sat down on the ground and began to weep. I was moved to pity too. I too broke into tears. She wiped my tears with the end of her sari and said, 'Jia, I call God to witness — I have not said one word to your father concerning your brother. A stain is written in my fate, and that fate is what I am running through.' Then she said much else besides, which I could not understand. Some of it was about Father."

Mansaram asked with agitation, "What did she say concerning Father? Do you remember any of it?"

"There was a good deal of talk, brother — I do not remember it," said Jiaram. "My memory is not so very strong. But the gist of her words seemed to be something like this — that she has to keep up this whole pretence in order to keep Father pleased. Heaven knows what things she said about right and wrong, dharma and adharma, which I could make nothing of at all. I have now come to believe that it was not her wish to send you here."

"You cannot understand the meaning of these moves," said Mansaram. "These are very deep manoeuvres."

"They may be within your understanding," said Jiaram. "They are not within mine."

"When you cannot understand geometry," said Mansaram, "how will you understand these things? That night, when she came to call me to eat, and at her insistence I had even got ready to go — at that moment, the instant she saw Father, the way she changed her tune — can I ever forget that?"

"That is the very thing I cannot understand," said Jiaram. "Only yesterday I went from here, and she began at once to ask after you. I said, 'Why, he says he will never set foot in this house again.' I told no lie — you had said it to me yourself. She had only to hear that, and she began to weep bitterly. In my heart I repented much — what was this I had blurted out, and where? Again and again she kept saying, 'Will he really leave the house because of me? Is he so angry with me? He went away and did not even meet me. The food was ready, and he did not even come to eat. Alas — how am I to tell into what calamity I have fallen?' Just then Father came in. At once she wiped her eyes and went to him, smiling. That is the thing I cannot understand. Today she begged of me earnestly to bring you back with me. Today I shall drag you off with me. In two days she has grown so thin — you would pity her to see it. So you will come, won't you?"

Mansaram gave no answer. His legs were trembling. Jiaram, hearing the bell for roll-call, ran off; but Mansaram lay down on the bench and drew so long a breath that it seemed as though he had not breathed for a long while. From his mouth came words drowned in unbearable anguish: "Alas, O God!" Apart from this name, his life seemed to him without any support. How much despair was in that single sigh, how much suffering, how much compassion, how much humble prayer — who can guess? Now the whole mystery was becoming clear to him, and again and again his tormented heart cried out in anguish: "Alas, O God — so dreadful a stain!"

Can a greater calamity than this be imagined in a man's life? Can a baser vileness than this be conceived in the world? Until today no father can have laid so pitiless a stain upon his son. He, whose character all praised, who was held up as an ideal for other youths, who had never let an impure thought come near him — upon him, this most dreadful of stains. It seemed to Mansaram as if his heart were splitting in two.

The second bell rang as well. The boys went to their rooms; but Mansaram, his cheek resting on his palm, was gazing with unblinking eyes at the ground, as though his whole world had been engulfed in water, as though he could not show his face to anyone. He would be marked absent at school, he would be fined — of this he had no care; when his whole world was plundered, what fear was there now in these little things? "Even after so great a stain has fallen on me, if I go on living, then cursed be my living."

In that same extremity of grief he cried out, "Mother! Where are you? Your son, on whom you would have laid down your life, whom you regarded as the support of your life, is today in dire peril. His own father is drawing a knife across his throat. Alas — are you there?"

Then Mansaram began to think again with a calmer mind. "Why is this suspicion fixed upon me? What is the cause of it? What thing did he see in me, that this suspicion arose in him? He is our father, not my enemy, that he should sit down without reason to lay this crime upon me. He must surely have seen or heard something. How much affection he had for me — he would not eat without me. For that very man to become my enemy — this cannot be without cause.

"Now — on what day was the seed of this suspicion sown? The matter of keeping me in a boarding house came later. That night when he came into my room and began to test me — that was the day his brow was already darkened. What thing happened that day, that displeased him? I had gone to ask the new mother for something to eat. Father was sitting there at the time. Yes — now I remember — at that very moment his face flushed dark. From that day the new mother stopped studying with me. Had I known that my coming and going in the house, my speaking with the new mother and teaching her, displeased my father, why would matters have come to this pass today? And the new mother — what must she be going through?"

Until now Mansaram had not given a thought to Nirmala. The moment Nirmala came into his mind, the hair on his body stood on end. "Alas — how will her simple, tender, loving heart bear this blow? Ah! In what error I had been! I took her affection for cunning. How was I to know that, to allay my father's delusion, she had to behave so harshly towards me? Ah — what an injustice I have done her. Her condition must be even worse than mine. I have come away here — but where will she go? Jia said she has not eaten for two days. She weeps all the while. How shall I go and comfort her? Why is she taking this calamity upon her own head for the sake of this wretched fellow? Again and again she asks after me. Why does she keep calling me? How can I tell her, 'Mother, I have not the slightest grievance against you; my heart towards you is wholly clear?'

"She must still be sitting and weeping. How great a wrong is this! What has come over Father? Was it for this that he married? Did he bring her here only to murder a young girl? Did he pluck this tender flower only to crush it?

"How shall their deliverance come? How shall the face of that innocent woman be made bright again? She is being given this punishment only for treating me with affection. This is the gift her goodness has earned her. Shall I sit and watch her endure such a pitiless blow? If not for the saving of my own honour, then for the saving of her good name I must offer up this life. There is no other means of deliverance. Ah — what longings there were in my heart! All of them must now be mingled with the dust. A chaste woman is being suspected — and on my account. With my own life I must save her — that is my duty. In this lies true heroism. Mother, I shall wash away this blackness with my own blood. In this lies the welfare both of myself and of you."

All day he stayed sunk in these thoughts. In the evening his two brothers came and began to urge him to come home.

"Why won't you come, brother dear?" said Siaram. "Do come along."

"I have no leisure to come just because you tell me to," said Mansaram.

"After all, tomorrow is Sunday," said Jiaram.

"I have work on Sunday too."

"All right — you'll come tomorrow, won't you?"

"No," said Mansaram. "Tomorrow I have to go to a match."

"Mother is making moong ladoos," said Siaram. "If you don't come, you won't get a single one. You and I will eat them all up — we won't give Jia any."

"Brother," said Jiaram, "if you don't come tomorrow, perhaps Mother will come here herself."

"Truly?" said Mansaram. "No — why would she do that? If she comes here, there will be great trouble. Tell her I have gone off somewhere to watch a match."

"Why should I tell a lie?" said Jiaram. "I'll tell her you were sitting there with your face swollen with sulking. See whether I don't bring her along with me."

"We'll say you didn't go to your lessons today," said Siaram. "That you lay about sleeping all the while."

By promising these envoys that he would come the next day, Mansaram got himself free of them. When the two had gone, he sank once more into anxiety. The whole night passed in turning from side to side. The holiday too passed away as he sat there; all day long he was haunted by the dread that the new mother might really come. If he heard the rattle of any carriage, his heart began to pound. "She has not come, has she?"

In the hostel there was a small dispensary. A doctor would come for an hour in the evening. If any boy fell ill, he would give him medicine. Today, when the doctor came, Mansaram, deep in some thought, went and stood beside him. The doctor knew Mansaram well. Seeing him, he said with astonishment, "What is this state you are in? You seem to be wasting away. You have not, surely, fallen into bad habits of the bazaar? After all, what has happened to you? Come here a moment."

Mansaram said with a smile, "I have the disease of life itself. Have you any medicine for that too?"

"I want to examine you," said the doctor. "Your very face is changed — you are hardly to be recognised."

Saying this, he took Mansaram's hand and examined his chest, his back, his eyes, his tongue, each in turn. Then, troubled, he said, "I shall meet the lawyer this very day. You are developing phthisis. All the symptoms are of that."

Mansaram asked with great eagerness, "In how many days will it all be over, doctor sahib?"

"What a thing to ask!" said the doctor. "I shall meet the lawyer and advise him to send you to some hill station. If God wills, you will get well very soon. The disease is still in its first stage."

"Then it seems there is a delay of a year or two," said Mansaram. "I cannot wait so long. Listen — I have no phthisis, nor any such thing, nor any other complaint at all. Do not put my father to needless worry. Just now I have a headache; give me some medicine. Let it be a medicine that will also bring me sleep. I have not slept for two nights."

The doctor opened the cupboard of poisonous medicines and, taking a little medicine from a phial, gave it to Mansaram. Mansaram asked, "Is this not some poison? If anyone drank it, would he die?"

"No — he would not die," said the doctor, "but it would certainly make his head spin."

"Is there any such medicine here," said Mansaram, "that the moment one drank it, life would depart?"

"Of such there are not one or two but a great many," said the doctor. "This phial that you see — if even one drop of it went into the stomach, life could not be saved. Death would come in an instant."

"Tell me, doctor sahib — those who swallow poison, they must suffer great pain?"

"There is not pain in all poisons," said the doctor. "There are some such that the instant one drinks, the man grows cold. This phial is of that kind; the moment one drinks it, the man falls unconscious, and then he does not wake again."

Mansaram thought — "Then to give up life is very easy. Why, then, do people fear it so? How shall I get this phial? If I tried to learn the name of the medicine and buy it from some druggist in town, he would never give it. Pooh — there is no difficulty in getting it. So much, at least, is now clear: that life can be ended with the greatest ease." Mansaram was as glad as if he had won some prize. The burden lifted, as it were, from his heart. The mass of cloud that had been hovering over his head was scattered and broken. After months, today he felt a kind of buoyancy in his mind. The boys were going to see a play; they had got leave of the supervisor. Mansaram too went off with them to see the play. He was as happy as if there were no creature in the world more joyful than he. When he saw the comic turns at the theatre, he rolled with laughter. In clapping again and again and shouting "Once more!" he was the first of all. Hearing the songs, he grew intoxicated, and would cry out, "Oh, oh, ho!" Again and again the eyes of the audience turned towards him. The actors too looked his way, eager to know who this gentleman was, so full of relish and feeling. His friends were astonished at his unruliness. He was a youth of very calm and grave disposition. Why was he so given to laughter today? Why was there no end to his merriment?

Even when they returned from the theatre at two o'clock in the night, his frenzy of merriment did not abate. He overturned one boy's cot; he bolted the doors of several boys' rooms from outside, and laughed to hear them rapping inside. So much so that even the warden of the hostel woke from his deep sleep at the uproar and expressed his displeasure at Mansaram's mischief. Who knows what a terrible revolution was taking place in his innermost depths? The pitiless blow of suspicion had crushed his shame and his self-respect. He had not the least fear of disgrace or contempt. This was no merriment — it was the piteous lament of his soul. When all the other boys had gone to sleep, he too lay down on his cot; but sleep would not come. After a moment he sat up and, tying up all his books, put them away in his trunk. "When one is to die, what is the use of studying? Better far is death than a life in which there are such obstacles, such torments as these."

Thinking thus, dawn broke. For three nights he had not slept an instant. When he rose now, his legs were trembling, and his head was as if going round. His eyes were burning, and every limb of his body was slack and feeble. The day was climbing higher, and he had not even the strength to get up and wash his face and hands. All at once he saw Bhungi coming, with a bearer, carrying something tied in a handkerchief. His heart grew numb. "Alas! O God — she has come. What will happen now? Bhungi will not have come alone. The carriage must surely be standing outside." Where but a moment before it had been an effort even to rise, the instant he saw Bhungi he ran out and said in an agitated voice, "Has the new mother come too, eh?" When he learned that the new mother had not come, then his mind grew calm.

Bhungi said, "Brother! You did not come yesterday — the mistress sat watching the road for you. Why are you angry with her, brother? She says she has made no complaint against you at all. Today she said to me, weeping, 'Take these sweets to him, and say — why has he left the house on my account? Where am I to set down this tray?'"

Mansaram said harshly, "Smash this tray on your own head, you witch. She has set off with sweets! Take care — never come this way again. She has set off with a gift. Go and tell her I do not want her sweets. Go and tell her — it is your house, live in it; he is very comfortable here. He eats his fill and makes merry. Listen — say this to Father's face — do you understand? I fear no one, and let them do whatever they will, so that no longing be left in their hearts. If they bid me, I'll go off to Allahabad, Lucknow, Calcutta. To me Banaras is no different from any other city. What is there here to hold me?"

"Brother — take the sweets," said Bhungi, "or she will weep and weep herself to death. Believe me — she will weep herself to death."

Mansaram, pressing down the surge of rising tears, said, "Let her die — what care I? What great happiness has she given me, that I should repent for her? She has utterly ruined me. Tell her — let her send no message to me; there is no need of it at all."

"Brother," said Bhungi, "you say you eat your fill here and make merry — but not half your body is left. You are not even half of what you were when you came."

"That is a trick of your eyes," said Mansaram. "Just watch — in a few days I shall grow fat as an oil-press, or not. And tell her this too — let her stop her weeping and wailing. If I hear that she weeps and does not eat, then there is no one worse than I. She has turned me out of the house — now let her live in peace. She has set off, to make a show of love. I have read much of such wiles of women."

Bhungi went away. From the very act of talking with her, Mansaram had begun to feel a kind of cold. To play this part, he had had to suppress his own feelings to a degree that was beyond his power. His self-respect was compelling him to make an end of this crooked behaviour as soon as possible — but what would be the consequence of it? Would Nirmala be able to bear this blow? Until now, when imagining death, he had given no thought to any other living being; but today, all at once, he understood that with the thread of his own life the life-thread of another being too was bound up. Nirmala would think that it was his cruelty that had taken her life. Thinking so, would her tender heart not break? Her own life too was even now in peril. Caught in the harsh claws of suspicion, could the helpless woman live long, believing herself a murderess?

Mansaram lay down on the cot and drew the quilt over himself; even so, his heart trembled with cold. In a little while a high fever came over him, and he lost consciousness. In that senseless state all manner of dreams began to appear to him. Every now and then he would start awake, his eyes would open, and then he would lapse into unconsciousness again.

Suddenly, hearing the lawyer's voice, he started up. Yes — it was the lawyer's voice. He flung off the quilt and, getting down from the cot, stood on the floor. An impulse rose in his mind to give up his life at that moment, before the lawyer. It seemed to him that if he died, it would give the lawyer true joy. Perhaps that was why he had come to see — how long it would be before he died. The lawyer took his hand, so that he should not fall, and asked, "How are you feeling, my dear? Why did you not stay lying down? Lie down, do — why have you got up?"

"I am perfectly well," said Mansaram. "You have troubled yourself for nothing." Munshiji gave no answer. Seeing the boy's condition, tears started from his eyes. That hale, sturdy boy, the very sight of whom gladdened the heart, had now withered away to a husk. In five or six days he had grown so thin that it was hard to recognise him. Munshiji laid him gently on the cot and, covering him well with the quilt, fell to thinking what ought now to be done. Was the boy slipping out of his hands? Thinking this, he was overcome with grief, and sitting on a stool he wept bitterly. Mansaram too, with his face wrapped in the quilt, was weeping. Only a few days before, his father's heart had swelled with pride at the sight of him; but today, seeing him in this dire condition, he was still wondering — should he take him home or not? Could the boy not be treated here? "I shall sit by him here twenty-four hours a day. The doctor is here too. There will be no difficulty." In taking the boy home he saw nothing but obstacle upon obstacle. The greatest fear was this — that there Nirmala would sit by him constantly, and he would not be able to forbid it. This was unbearable to him.

Just then the warden came and said, "I think you ought to take him with you. The carriage is here; there will be no trouble. Here he cannot be properly looked after."

"Yes — I came with that very thought," said Munshiji, "but his condition seems very critical. With the least carelessness, there is danger of his becoming delirious."

"There is, to be sure, a little difficulty in taking him from here," said the warden, "but you can surely see for yourself that the comfort he can have at home cannot be had here by any means. Besides, to keep a sick boy here is against the rules."

"If you say so, I shall get the headmaster's permission," said Munshiji. "It seems to me in no way proper to take him from here in this condition."

When the warden heard the headmaster's name, he supposed that this gentleman was threatening him. Bridling a little, he said, "The headmaster can do nothing against the rules. How can I take on so great a responsibility?"

"Now what is to be done? Must he be taken home after all? The excuse for keeping him here was that there is danger of the illness worsening if he is moved. There is no excuse for moving him from here and lodging him in a hospital. Whoever hears of it will say that, to save the doctor's fees, the boy was dumped in a hospital." But now there was no other course but to take him away. Had the warden been ready, at this moment, to take a bribe, perhaps Munshiji would have given him two or four years' salary; but where do men bound by rules have so much sense, so much cleverness? If anyone at this moment had suggested to Munshiji an objection by which he need not take Mansaram home, he would have been grateful for it his whole life long. There was no time even to think. The warden was perched on his head like a demon. Helpless, Munshiji called the two grooms and began to lift Mansaram. Mansaram was in a half-conscious state. He started up and said, "What is it? Who is there?"

"There is no one, son," said Munshiji. "I wish to take you home. Come — let me lift you in my arms."

"Why do you take me home?" said Mansaram. "I will not go there."

"Here you cannot stay," said Munshiji. "Such is the rule."

"Whatever the case," said Mansaram, "I will not go there. Take me anywhere else — under some tree, in some hut — keep me wherever you please, but do not take me home."

The warden said to Munshiji, "Pay no attention to this talk — he is not in his senses."

"Who is not in his senses?" said Mansaram. "I, not in my senses? Do I abuse anyone? Do I bite with my teeth? Why am I not in my senses? Let me lie here; whatever is to happen, let it happen — and if that may not be, then take me to a hospital. I shall lie there. If I am to live, I shall live; if I am to die, I shall die — but to the house I will not go on any account."

Gaining strength from this, Munshiji again began to entreat the warden; but that man, a stickler for rules, would hear nothing at all. "If it is a contagious disease and another boy catches it, who will answer for it?" Before this argument, even Munshiji's legal pleas were defeated.

At last Munshiji said to Mansaram, "Son, why do you refuse to come home? There you will have every kind of comfort." Munshiji said this for the sake of saying it, but he was afraid that Mansaram might really agree to come. He was hunting for some pretext to keep Mansaram in a hospital, and wished to lay the responsibility for it on Mansaram's own head. This was a matter that the warden could witness; he could testify that Mansaram was going to the hospital of his own obstinacy, and that Munshiji had not the slightest fault in it.

Mansaram said irritably, "No — no — a hundred times no. I will not go home. Take me to a hospital, and forbid all the people of the house to come and see me. Nothing has happened to me; I am not ill at all. Let me go — I can walk on my own feet."

He stood up and walked, like one beside himself, towards the door; but his legs tottered. Had Munshiji not caught hold of him, he would have been badly hurt. With the help of the two servants, Munshiji brought him to the carriage and seated him inside.

The carriage set off towards the hospital. It happened just as Munshiji had wished. Even in this grief, his mind was content. The boy was going to the hospital of his own will — was this not proof that there was no affection for him in the house? Did it not establish that Mansaram was innocent — that he had suspected him for no cause at all?

But in a little while the place of this satisfaction was taken by a feeling of self-reproach risen in his mind. He was carrying his beloved son not home but to a hospital. In his vast mansion there had been no room for his son — and that, too, in a condition when his life hung in peril. What a mockery it was!

After a moment, all at once, a question rose in Munshiji's mind — "Has Mansaram not, perhaps, divined his feelings? Is that not why he has come to hate the house? If that is so, then disaster will fall."

At the mere thought of that calamity the hair stood on end on Munshiji's body, and his heart began to pound. A jolt struck his heart. "If this is the cause of the fever, then God alone is master." At this moment his condition was most pitiable. The fire that he had kindled to warm his own frozen hands was now spreading through his own house. With this compassion, grief, remorse and dread, his mind grew distraught. Could the sound of his hidden weeping have reached outside, those who heard it would have wept. Could his tears have flowed forth, a stream of them would have run unbroken. He looked upon the colourless face of his son with eyes full of tenderness, and, distracted with anguish, pressed him to his breast and wept so long that the sobbing choked him.

In front, the hospital gate could be seen.