the careless saw, but she never spoke about anything to give them the
clue to it. She went to stay in her father's house for a few weeks, and
they saw the change, but she would not speak even to them.

Then things got worse. The girl grew thin, and the neighbours talked,
and the father heard and understood; and, to save a scandal, he took
them away from the town where they lived, and made every effort to give
them another start in a place where they were not known. But the coils
of that snake of deified sin had twisted round the boy, body and soul;
he could not escape from it.

They moved again to another town; it followed him there, for a temple
was there, and a temple means _that_.

Then the devil of cruelty seized upon him; he would drink, a disgraceful
thing in his Caste, and then hold his little wife down on the floor, and
stuff a bit of cloth into her mouth, and beat her, and kick her, and
trample upon her, and tear the jewels out of her ears. The neighbours
saw it, and told.

Then he refused to bring money to her, and she slowly starved, quite
silent still, till at last hunger broke down her resolute will, and she
begged the neighbours for rice. And he did more, but it cannot be told.
How often one stops in writing home-letters. _The whole truth can never
be told._

She is only a girl yet, in years at least; in suffering, oh, how old she
is! Not half is known, for she never speaks; loyal and true to him
through it all. We only know what the neighbours know, and what her
silent dark eyes tell, and the little thin face and hands.

She was very weary and ill to-day, but she would not own it, brave
little soul! I could see that neuralgia was racking her head, and every
limb trembled when she stood up; but what made it so pathetic to me was
the silence with which she bore it all. I have only seen her once
before, and now she is going far away with her husband to another town,
and I may not see her again. She was too tired to listen much, and she
knows so little, not nearly enough to rest her soul upon. She cannot
read, so it is useless to write to her. She is going away quite out of
our reach; thank God, not out of His.

We watched them drive off in the bullock cart, a servant walking behind.
The little pale face of the elder girl looked out at the open end of the
cart; she salaamed as they drove away. Such a sweet face in its silent
strength, so wondrously gentle, yet so strong, strong to endure.

Do you won