SHE PLACED HER HAND IN HIS
yearned to see her suitably married and settled in life. She no longer took any interest in the concerns of the two estates, but her long-cherished wish to see them united revived in her when the handsome Noren and the meek-eyed Hemlata played together round her. And even when the boy reached his first youth, and the girl was in her teens, Hemlata's mother permitted an intimacy between them which is seldom allowed in Hindu households.
It was with something more than agony, it was with a feeling of amazement and horror, that Nobo Kumar's wife read, as in a flash-light, the secret thoughts of Gokul Das, when Sirish was brought from Debipur and placed between Hemlata and Noren. Jealousy sharpens a woman's faculties, and she reads signs which are imperceptible to a man's vision. But as Nobo Kumar's wife saw more clearly her proud mind became more determined. Here, in her own domestic circle, she was the mistress, and neither Gokul Das nor her lord must touch her domestic rights. She would not bestow her daughter's hand on a beggar boy.
Nobo Kumar saw her stern resolve and quailed before it. "I have seen Subahdars and Commanders in my day, but have not met the equal of that woman," he said to himself. Even Gokul Das for the first time hesitated. "But the estate of Debipur shall not pass to Birnagar," he quietly determined.
A breath of wind will sometimes bring down an avalanche. An accident in a boat-race determined the fortunes of Birnagar and Debipur. Hemlata's mother bit her lips in rage but could not speak. A wife could not offer her child to a man who had made an attempt—so the world said—on her husband's life.
