was so sure of his facts that he went about spreading the news. Jagamohan did not say a single word to contradict him.
‘For us atheists,’ he said, ‘the only heaven waiting for good deeds is calumny.’
The more the rumour of Jagamohan’s doings became distorted, the more he seemed to enjoy it, and his laughter rang loud in the sky. Harimohan and respectable people of his class could never imagine that the uncle could go so far as to jest openly on such a subject, and indulge in loud unseemly buffoonery about it with his own nephew.
Though Purandar had been carefully avoiding that part of the house where his uncle lived, he vowed that he would never rest till he had driven the girl away from her shelter.
At the time when Jagamohan had to go to his school he would shut up all access to his quarters, and he would come back the moment he had any leisure to see how Noni was faring.
One day at noon Purandar, with the help of a bamboo ladder, crossed the boundary wall and jumped down into Jagamohan’s part of the house. Nonibala had been resting after the morning meal. The door of her room was open. Purandar, when
