The king and the clown then appear in the garden, and the king expresses at some length the depth and seeming hopelessness of his passion.  The latter part of his lament is overheard by Urvashi herself, who, impelled by love for the king, has come down to earth with her friend Chitralekha, and now stands near, listening but invisible.  When she has heard enough to satisfy her of the king’s passion, she writes a love-stanza on a birch-leaf, and lets it fall before him.  His reception of this token is such that Urvashi throws aside the magic veil that renders her invisible, but as soon as she has greeted the king, she and her friend are called away to take their parts in a play that is being presented in Paradise.

The king and the clown hunt for Urvashi’s love-letter, which has been neglected during the past few minutes.  But the leaf has blown away, only to be picked up and read by Nipunika, who at that moment enters with the queen.  The queen can hardly be deceived by the lame excuses which the king makes, and after offering her ironical congratulations, jealously leaves him.

ACT III.—­The act opens with a conversation between two minor personages in Paradise.  It appears that Urvashi had taken the heroine’s part in the drama just presented there, and when asked, “On whom is your heart set?” had absentmindedly replied, “On Pururavas.”  Heaven’s stage-director had thereupon cursed her to fall from Paradise, but this curse had been thus modified:  that she was to live on earth with Pururavas until he should see a child born of her, and was then to return.

The scene shifts to Pururavas’ palace.  In the early evening, the chamberlain brings the king a message, inviting him to meet the queen on a balcony bathed in the light of the rising moon.  The king betakes himself thither with his friend, the clown.  In the midst of a dialogue concerning moonlight and love, Urvashi and Chitralekha enter from Paradise, wearing as before veils of invisibility.  Presently the queen appears and with humble dignity asks pardon of the king for her rudeness, adding that she will welcome any new queen whom he genuinely loves and who genuinely returns his love.  When the queen departs, Urvashi creeps up behind the king and puts her hands over his eyes.  Chitralekha departs after begging the king to make her friend forget Paradise.

ACT IV.—­From a short dialogue in Paradise between Chitralekha and another nymph, we learn that a misfortune has befallen Pururavas and Urvashi.  During their honeymoon in a delightful Himalayan forest, Urvashi, in a fit of jealousy, had left her husband, and had inadvertently entered a grove forbidden by an austere god to women.  She was straightway transformed into a vine, while Pururavas is wandering through the forest in desolate anguish.