As in an untended garden overgrown with grass a single rose or lily will bloom, so in this house Kunda Nandini lived alone.  Wherever a few joined in a meal Kunda partook of it.  If any one addressed her as house-mistress, Kunda thought, “They are mocking me.”  If the Dewan sent to ask her about anything her heart beat with fear.  There was a reason for this.  As Nagendra did not write to Kunda, she had been accustomed to send to the Dewan for the letters received by him.  She did not return the letters, and she lived in fear that the Dewan would claim them; and in fact the man no longer sent them to her, but only suffered her to read them as he held them in his hand.

The suffering felt by Surja Mukhi was endured in equal measure by Kunda Nandini.  Surja Mukhi loved her husband; did not Kunda love him?  In that little heart there was inexhaustible love, and because it could find no expression, like obstructed breathing it wounded her heart.  From childhood, before her first marriage, Kunda had loved Nagendra; she had told no one, no one knew it.  She had had no desire to obtain Nagendra, no hope of doing so; her despair she had borne in silence.  To have striven for it would have been like striving to reach the moon in the sky.  Now where was that moon?  For what fault had Nagendra thrust her from him?  Kunda revolved these thoughts in her mind night and day; night and day she wept.  Well! let Nagendra not love her.  It was her good fortune to love him.  Why might she not even see him?  Nor that only:  he regarded Kunda as the root of his troubles; every one considered her so.  Kunda thought, “Why should I be blamed for all this?”

In an evil moment Nagendra had married Kunda.  As every one who sits under the upas-tree must die, so every one who had been touched by the shadow of this marriage was ruined.

Then again Kunda thought, “Surja Mukhi has come to this condition through me.  Surja Mukhi protected me, loved me as a sister; I have made her a beggar by the roadside.  Who is there more unfortunate than I?  Why did I not die by the roadside?  Why do I not die now?  I will not die now; let him come, let me see him again.  Will he not come?” Kunda had not received the news of Surja Mukhi’s death, therefore she thought, “What is the use of dying now?  Should Surja Mukhi return, then I will die; I will no longer be a thorn in her path.”

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE RETURN.

The work required to be done in Calcutta was finished.  The deed of gift was drawn up.  In it special rewards were indicated for the Brahmachari and the unknown Brahman.  The deed would have to be registered at Haripur, therefore Nagendra went to Govindpur, taking it with him.  He had instructed his brother-in-law to follow.  Srish Chandra had striven to prevent his executing this deed, also to restrain him from making the journey on foot, but in vain.  His efforts thus defeated, he followed by boat; and as Kamal Mani could not endure to be parted from her husband, she and Satish simply accompanied him without asking any questions.