Several days passed by, bringing no alleviation to her fate.  But matters came to a crisis on a certain morning, owing to Ramzan’s complaint that his wife had over-salted the curry.  On tasting the food, Fatima burst into violent imprecations and “went for” her daughter-in-law, who took refuge in the neighbouring brushwood.  At nightfall she crept back to the house and found Ramzan closeted with his mother.  They were talking earnestly, but Maini could not distinguish the purport of the conversation.  It seemed to her that Fatima’s voice was raised in entreaty, and Ramzan was objecting to some scheme proposed by her.  She passed the night sleepless and in tears.

Early next day Ramzan entered her room and said gruffly, “Get up, collect your chattels, and follow me.  I am going to take you back to Sadhu’s.”  Maini obeyed without a word of remonstrance, and a quarter of an hour later the ill-assorted pair might have been seen walking towards Simulgachi.

The rainy season was now in full swing, and their path lay across a deep nullah (ravine) through which mighty volumes of drainage water were finding their way to the Ganges.  On reaching a bamboo foot-bridge which spanned it, Ramzan ordered his wife to go first.  Ere she reached the opposite bank, he gave her a violent shove, which sent her shrieking vainly for help into the swirling torrent below.

Hardly had Ramzan perpetrated this odious deed than he felt he would give his chances of bihisht (paradise) to recall it.  He ran along the bank shouting frantically, “Maini!  Maini!” Alas! her slender body was carried like a straw by the foaming water towards the Ganges and soon disappeared in a bend of the nullah.  Then her murderer sat down and gave himself up to despair.  But the sun was up; people were stirring in the fields; and so he slunk homewards.  Fatima stood on the threshold and raised her eyebrows inquiringly; but Ramzan thrust her aside, muttering, “It is done,” and shut himself up in his wife’s room.  There everything reminded him of her; the scrupulous neatness of floor and walls—­no cobwebs hanging from the rafters, the kitchen utensils shining like mirrors.  He sat down and burst into a flood of tears.

For several days he did not exchange a word with his accomplice, and dared not go to market lest his worst fears should be realised.  Dread of personal consequences added new torture to unavailing remorse.  Every moment he expected the red-pagried ministers of justice to appear and hale him to the scaffold.  The position was clearly past bearing.  So, too, thought Fatima, for she waylaid her son one afternoon and said:  “Ramzan, I cannot stand this life any longer; let me go to my brother Mahmud Sardar, the cooly-catcher”.

“Go,” he replied sullenly, and the old woman gathered up her belongings in a bundle and departed, leaving him to face the dark future alone.

While brooding over his fate, he was startled by the sudden arrival of Sadhu.  “Now I’m in for it,” he thought and began to tremble violently while his features assumed an ashen hue.  But Sadhu sat down by his side and said, “Ramzan, I’ve come about Maini”.