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Mahendra turned the matter over and over in his mind: "I spoke falsely when I said that I do not love Binodini. I said it with the greatest harshness. It may not be exactly true that I love her --- but 'I do not love you' is a terrible thing to say. What woman could receive such words without hurt? Where and when shall I find occasion to set this right? I cannot say I love her --- that would not be right. But the words 'I do not love her' need to be softened, made less brutal, communicated differently. It is wrong to leave in Binodini's mind so cruel and yet so mistaken an impression." So thinking, Mahendra took out the three letters from his box and read them through once more.

He reasoned within himself: "There is no doubt that Binodini loves me. But why did she rush to Bihari in that fashion yesterday? Only to demonstrate it to me. When I declared so plainly that I did not love her, she had no choice but to repudiate her love before me at the first opportunity. And in her humiliation before me, she may, indeed, have come to love Bihari." Mahendra's agitation grew to such a pitch that he was himself astonished and frightened by his own turbulence.

What of it if Binodini had heard that Mahendra did not love her? Where was the harm? What if, stung by those words, the proud Binodini tried to turn her thoughts elsewhere? What loss could that bring? Yet like a boat in a storm whose chain drags taut against its anchor, Mahendra clutched at Asha with an urgency born of desperation. That night, Mahendra held Asha's face close to his breast and asked, "Chuni --- tell me exactly how much you love me." Asha thought: "What a question. Is it that after the shameful matter that arose about Bihari, a shadow of doubt has fallen upon her?" She was mortified with shame and said, "Oh --- why do you ask such a question tonight? I fall at your feet --- tell me plainly: in what have you ever found my love wanting?" Mahendra, seeking to draw out her sweetness by pressing her, said, "Then why do you want to go to Kashi?" Asha said, "I do not want to go to Kashi. I shall go nowhere."

"And yet just a little while ago you did wish to go," said Mahendra.

Asha said with great distress, "You know yourself why I wished it."

"No doubt you would live in considerable comfort with your aunt, away from me," said Mahendra.

Asha said, "Never. It was not for comfort that I wished to go." Mahendra said, "I speak the truth, Chuni --- had you married someone else, you might have been far happier." Hearing this, Asha pulled away from Mahendra's chest in an instant, buried her face in the pillow, and lay rigid as wood --- then, a moment later, her weeping could be contained no longer.

Mahendra tried to draw her back to his breast to comfort her; Asha would not leave the pillow. In the face of this pure wifely pride, Mahendra was torn between pleasure, vanity, and self-reproach. What had lain in hints and shadows broke out into plain speech and threw everything into disarray. Binodini began to turn over in her mind: why had Bihari offered no protest against so explicit an accusation? Had he offered even a false denial, Binodini felt she might have been somewhat pleased.

So be it --- Mahendra's blow to Bihari had been well deserved. Why should a man of such nobility as Bihari love Asha? If this blow had driven Bihari away to a distance --- perhaps it was for the best. Binodini told herself she was satisfied. Yet Bihari's face --- ashen, bloodless, as though struck by the arrow of death --- haunted Binodini through every occupation. The nurturing womanly nature within her wept at the sight of that stricken face. As a mother rocks a sick child against her bosom, so Binodini rocked that anguished image within her own heart; a feverish longing seized her to see that face restored to health, to see the colour returning to those cheeks, the flow of life renewed, the flower of a smile reopened.

Two or three days of roaming through all her tasks in this distracted state, and Binodini could endure it no longer. She wrote a letter of consolation, and said--- "Brother-in-law --- from the moment I saw your haggard face that day, it has been the prayer of my heart and soul that you be well, that you become as you were --- when shall I see that easy smile again, when shall I hear that generous voice? Tell me in a line how you are." Your Binodin-bouthaan." Binodini sent the letter to Bihari's address by the gatekeeper's hand. That Mahendra could utter with such brutality, and in such a degrading fashion, the words "Bihari loves Asha" --- this Bihari had never imagined, even in a dream. For he himself had never permitted the thought to take clear form in his mind. At first he was thunderstruck --- and then, writhing in anger and contempt, he told himself: "It is unjust, it is absurd, it is groundless." But once a thing has been spoken aloud, it can never be entirely killed again. Whatever seed of truth lay within it began, visibly, to germinate. That one afternoon, long ago, at the time of the prospective match, when in the swelling garden-fragrance of sunset a shy girl's delicate face had seemed to him utterly his own, and he had gazed upon it with a melting tenderness --- that image returned again and again, pressing upon his chest with something he could not name, and a pain of extraordinary sharpness stirred all the way to his throat. During long night-hours lying on the rooftop, pacing rapidly up and down the road before the house --- what had till now been unspoken became spoken within Bihari. What had been restrained became ungoverned; what had held no proof even for himself was given, by Mahendra's words, an enormous life, and flooded Bihari within and without. Then he knew himself for a man at fault. He thought: "It is no longer right for me to be angry.

I must go to Mahendra, acknowledge all my failing, and take my leave." On that day he had departed as though Mahendra were the guilty party and he the judge --- he would go and confess that wrong. Bihari knew that Asha had gone to Kashi. One evening he walked slowly to the door of Mahendra's house. Seeing Sadhucharan --- a distant kinsman of Rajlakshmi --- he asked, "Sadhuda, I have not been here for a few days --- is everyone well?" Sadhucharan told him all was well. Bihari asked, "When did bouthan leave for Kashi?" Sadhucharan said, "She has not gone.

The Kashi journey will not take place." Hearing this, an impulse seized Bihari to go straight inside without pausing to question it --- to go into the inner rooms. In the old days he would climb the familiar stairs with such ease and joy, as one of the family, sitting awhile with everyone in warm and pleasant talk, thinking nothing of it --- but today he knew all that to be improper and beyond reach, and the knowledge drove him nearly out of his mind. Just once more, just this one last time --- to go inside as the son of the house and exchange a few ordinary words with Rajlakshmi, to say "bouthan" to Asha with her veil drawn and speak two trivial sentences --- this became for him the object of an overwhelming longing. Sadhucharan said, "Friend, why do you stand in the dark --- come inside." At this, Bihari walked rapidly a few steps toward the inner rooms --- then turned back and said to Sadhu, "I am going --- I have an errand." And he hurried away. That same night, Bihari departed for the west. The gatekeeper, bearing Binodini's letter, found no Bihari and brought the letter back. Mahendra was walking in the small garden before the entrance gate at the time. He asked, "Whose letter is this?" The gatekeeper told him everything. Mahendra took the letter. For a moment he thought of taking it in and handing it to Binodini --- of watching the shame come over her guilty face --- of saying nothing. That the letter contained something for Binodini to be ashamed of, Mahendra entertained no doubt. He recalled that on a previous occasion, too, a letter had gone to Bihari in much the same fashion. He could not rest without knowing what was written in it. He reasoned to himself: Binodini was in his charge; he was responsible for her welfare. To open and read a letter so patently suspicious was therefore his duty. He could not, under any circumstances, permit Binodini to go astray. Mahendra opened the brief letter and read it. It was written in simple language, and from it an unfeigned anxiety shone clearly through. He read it again and again, and thought long over it, but could not discern the direction of Binodini's heart. He could only feel an increasingly urgent dread: "It is the pride wounded by my declaration that I do not love her --- and in that wounded pride Binodini is trying to turn her mind elsewhere.

In anger, she has given me up entirely." This thought made it altogether impossible for Mahendra to maintain any composure. That Binodini --- who had come to surrender herself to him --- should be completely lost to his possession in a moment of his own foolishness: this possibility would not let Mahendra rest. He told himself: "If Binodini loves me in her heart, it is for her own good --- it will keep her bound in one place." I know my own mind --- I shall never do her wrong. She may love me in safety. I love Asha; there is nothing for Binodini to fear from me. But if she turns her heart in another direction, what ruin may befall her, who can say? Mahendra resolved that without surrendering himself, he would find some opportunity to draw Binodini's heart back to its former course. When Mahendra entered the inner rooms, he found Binodini standing in the passage, seemingly waiting for someone in anxious expectation. In that instant a flash of jealousy blazed up in Mahendra's mind. He said, "You wait in vain --- there will be no meeting.

Here is your letter, come back." And he flung the letter down. Binodini said, "But it has been opened---" Mahendra gave no answer to this and walked away. Binodini, believing that Bihari had opened and read the letter, found no answer in it, and returned it --- felt every vein in her body begin to throb and pound. She sent for the gatekeeper who had carried the letter; he was absent on some errand, and could not be found. As a burning lamp drips molten oil, so from Binodini's blazing eyes the anguish of her heart melted and fell in tears within the shut bedchamber. She tore the letter to shreds and still found no relief. Those few lines of ink --- why was there no way to obliterate them utterly from the past and present, to make them as though they had never been? An enraged bee stings whatever it encounters --- and Binodini, in her fury, prepared to set fire to everything around her. Whatever she desired was blocked at every turn. Was she to succeed at nothing? If happiness was not to be hers, then those who had stood between her and every happiness, who had robbed her of fulfilment, stripped her of every possible prize --- to lay them low and grind them in the dust: that would be the one act worthy of her defeated life.