anxious whispers, urging her to hasten back home for fear of being detected. But she paid no heed to the warning, for her sense of fear had gone.
The play goes on. Krishna has given offence to his beloved Radha, and she in her wounded pride refuses to recognise him. He is entreating her, abasing himself at her feet, but in vain. Giribala’s heart seems to swell. She imagines herself as the offended Radha; and feels that she also has in her this woman’s power to vindicate her pride. She had heard what a force was woman’s beauty in the world, but to-night it became to her palpable.
At last the curtain dropped, the light became dim, the audience got ready to leave the theatre, but Giribala sat still like one in a dream. The thought that she would have to go home had vanished from her mind. She waited for the curtain to rise again and the eternal theme of Krishna’s humiliation at the feet of Radha to continue. But Sudha came to remind her that the play had ended, and the lamps would soon be put out.
It was late when Giribala came back home. A kerosene lamp was dimly burning in the melancholy solitude and silence of her room. Near her window upon her lonely bed a mosquito curtain was slightly
