ing what trouble weighed upon her mind.

Then a new danger arose. Kadambini was afraid of herself; yet she could
not flee from herself. Those who fear ghosts fear those who are behind
them; wherever they cannot see there is fear. But Kadambini's chief
terror lay in herself, for she dreaded nothing external. At the dead of
night, when alone in her room, she screamed; in the evening, when she
saw her shadow in the lamp-light, her whole body shook. Watching her
fearfulness, the rest of the house fell into a sort of terror. The
servants and Jogmaya herself began to see ghosts.

One midnight, Kadambini came out from her bedroom weeping, and wailed at
Jogmaya's door: "Sister, sister, let me lie at your feet! Do not put me
by myself!"

Jogmaya's anger was no less than her fear. She would have liked to drive
Kadambini from the house that very second. The good-natured Sripati,
after much effort, succeeded in quieting their guest, and put her in the
next room.

Next day Sripati was unexpectedly summoned to his wife's apartments.
She began to upbraid him: "You, do you call yourself a man? A woman runs
away from her father-in-law, and enters your house; a month passes,
and you haven't hinted that she should go away, nor have I heard the
slightest protest from you. I should cake it as a favour if you would
explain yourself. You men are all alike."

Men, as a race, have a natural partiality for womankind in general,
foe which women themselves hold them accountable. Although Sripati
was prepared to touch Jogmaya's body, and swear that his kind feeling
towards the helpless but beautiful Kadambini was no whit greater than it
should be, he could not prove it by his behaviour. He thought that her
father-in-law's people must have treated this forlorn widow abominably,
if she could bear it no longer, and was driven to take refuge with
him. As she had neither father nor mother, how could he desert her? So
saying, he let the matter drop, far he had no mind to distress Kadambini
by asking her unpleasant questions.

His wife, then, tried other means of her sluggish lord, until at last
he saw that for the sake of peace he must send word to Kadambini's
father-in-law. The result of a letter, he thought, might not be
satisfactory; so he resolved to go to Ranihat, and act on what he
learnt.

So Sripati went, and Jogmaya on her part said to Kadambini "Friend, it
hardly seems proper for you to stop here any longer. What will people
say?"

K