Whether because the light from the oil-less lamp was dim, or because the two occupants of the house were absorbed in thinking of their approaching separation, Nagendra’s entrance was unseen.  Standing in the doorway, he heard the last sorrowful words that issued from the mouth of the old man.  These two, the old man and the young girl, were friendless in this densely-peopled world.  Once they had had wealth, relatives, men and maid servants—­abundance of all kinds; but by the fickleness of fortune, one after another, all had gone.  The mother of the family, seeing the faces of her son and daughter daily fading like the dew-drenched lotus from the pinch of poverty, had early sunk upon the bed of death.  All the other stars had been extinguished with that moon.  The support of the race, the jewel of his mother’s eye, the hope of his father’s age, even he had been laid on the pyre before his father’s eyes.  No one remained save the old man and this enchanting girl.  They dwelt in this ruined, deserted house in the midst of the forest.  Each was to the other the only helper.

Kunda Nandini was of marriageable age; but she was the staff of her father’s blindness, his only bond to this world.  While he lived he could give her up to no one.  “There are but a few more days; if I give away Kunda where can I abide?” were the old man’s thoughts when the question of giving her in marriage arose in his mind.  Had it never occurred to him to ask himself what would become of Kunda when his summons came?  Now the messenger of death stood at his bedside; he was about to leave the world; where would Kunda be on the morrow?

The deep, indescribable suffering of this thought expressed itself in every failing breath.  Tears streamed from his eyes, ever restlessly closing and opening, while at his head sat the thirteen-year-old girl, like a stone figure, firmly looking into her father’s face, covered with the shadows of death.  Forgetting herself, forgetting to think where she would go on the morrow, she gazed only on the face of her departing parent.  Gradually the old man’s utterance became obscure, the breath left the throat, the eyes lost their light, the suffering soul obtained release from pain.  In that dark place, by that glimmering lamp, the solitary Kunda Nandini, drawing her father’s dead body on to her lap, remained sitting.  The night was extremely dark; even now rain-drops fell, the leaves of the trees rustled, the wind moaned, the windows of the ruined house flapped noisily.  In the house, the fitful light of the lamp flickered momentarily on the face of the dead, and again left it in darkness.  The lamp had long been exhausted of oil; now, after two or three flashes, it went out.  Then Nagendra, with noiseless steps, went forth from the doorway.

CHAPTER II.

“COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE.”