This impudence was too much.  Both uncle and nephew fell upon Jogesh and belaboured him sorely with their shoes.  He did not retaliate, but consoled himself with the thought that he had done his duty, to God and society, by marrying his daughter, whatever fate might await him.  After vowing to bring a suit against the swindler, Amarendra Babu and his uncle left the premises and did what they would have done much earlier had they not been in such a desperate hurry to marry the lad.  They made inquiries as to Jogesh’s position and soon discovered that he was a man of straw, quite unworthy of powder and shot.  They learned, too, that he had hired Rs. 3,000 worth of trinkets for one night from a goldsmith, who never let them out of his possession.  From a wealthy neighbour he had borrowed a McCabe’s watch and chain, also for one night only.  His arrangements made with a gang of city roughs, in order to prevent the marriage being broken off, also came to light.  Amarendra Babu saw that he had been dealing with a cunning and desperate man and prudently determined to give him a wide berth in future.  But his daughter was in Amarendra Babu’s clutches, and she was forced to expiate the sins of her father.  The luckless girl was kept on very short commons and locked into a dark room when she was not engaged in rough household work.  Contrary to custom, she was not sent to her father’s house three days after the marriage; nor was the Bau-Bhat ceremony performed.  But Jogesh was on the alert; he managed to communicate with her by bribing a maid-servant, and one morning Amarendra Babu’s household discovered that the half-starved bird had flown.

A year passed away without news of the truants; but, one evening, Amarendra Babu was sitting in his parlour, spelling out a spicy leader in the Indian Mirror, when, to his unqualified amazement, Jogesh stepped in and unbidden took a seat.  Amarendra Babu’s first impulse was to shout for help and eject the intruder with every species of ignominy, but second thoughts are proverbially peaceful.

“This Jogesh,” he reflected, “must be a very smart fellow, or he would never have taken us all in as he did.  It is better to be on the side of the sacrificial knife than the goat that awaits its stroke.  Why should I not hear what he has to say?  He would not have come here without some excellent reason—­perhaps he wants to pay up part of his debt to me, or maybe he has some scheme with money in it to unfold.  He’ll certainly try to overreach me again; but then once bitten twice shy.  I’ll be on my guard.”  Then with an attempt at irony he asked:—­

“What brings you of all people to my house?  Have you got another daughter to marry?”

Had Amarendra Babu observed the gleam which shot from Jogesh’s shifty eyes, he would have kicked him out at once, but he waited for a reply, which came in honeyed accents:—­

“Now, Babuji, please don’t rake up old stories; what is done cannot be undone.  You, as a father, ought to excuse little subterfuges, contrived in order to get a daughter off one’s hands.  I was so anxious to ally myself with your distinguished family that I did sail rather near the wind.  But I have come to offer you some amends by putting you on a really good thing.”