This page has been validated.
BETWEEN RIVAL CHARMERS
107

pleased to see his daughter the inmate of a house in which such a woman lives."

"What is all this again?" Mathur said, becoming irritated.

"Send me to my father's house," she replied.

"You know I cannot part with you. Leave off childishness" returned he, softening.

"Then part with that woman," was the reply.

"Part with that woman; why, what is she to me that there is any difficulty in my parting with her? Well, I will think of it."

With these words Mathur left the room, resolved to prevaricate and deceive his wife till her mind should change.

That evening when he again returned to the chamber, an extraordinary spectacle presented itself to his eyes. In a corner of the room, far apart from his bedstead, another bed had been neatly prepared on an humble couch which had been pitched up from the room for service.

"What is that for?" asked Mathur, as the additional bed caught his eye. Champak spoke not, but throwing herself on it, went to sleep without deigning a reply.

Our readers will guess what a night the uxorious Mathur Ghose passed. When he rose next morning and went out to his baithak-khana,[1] he observed a visitor waiting for him, who said he was Rajmohan Ghose. He explained to Mathur the object of his visit to be that having obtained intelligence that his wife who had left his house

  1. Parlour.