Hemanta rose, and took his departure without waiting for this luxurious hospitality.

Get a glass of cocoanut milk for Hemanta Babu with ice in it.

Having heard her to the end, Hemanta rose and walked out.

Hemanta looked at his wife, and detected no trace of surprise in her features.

Hemanta rose, and walking to the door, said: "Father, I won't forsake my wife."

Returning from without, Hemanta asked his wife: "Is it true?"

Only a short while ago Hemanta had whispered to her: "What a beautiful night!"

Hemanta, flaring up like a big fire, said in a trembling voice: You have defiled our caste.

Standing outside the door Harihar roared out: "Hemanta, turn your wife out of the house immediately."

Controlling himself with a gigantic effort, Hemanta said: What will become of this girl whom I shall abandon now?

At last Hemanta clasped both the hands of his wife, and, shaking them gently, said: Kusum, where are you?

Hemanta wished that his Brahmin-fury could reduce Peari Sankar to ashes in a moment, but his rage burnt only himself.

Hemanta was sitting on the side of the bed next the open window, gazing at the darkness in front of him.

The next morning Hemanta, fagged after a sleepless night, and looking like one distracted, called at the house of Peari Sankar Ghosal.

Without paying much attention to the concluding remarks of Peari Sankar, Hemanta asked: "Did not Kusum object to this marriage?"

"If you do," laughed Hemanta, "pray don't utter it.