Page:Broken Ties and Other Stories.pdf/207

 ‘The husband bent his head, and said to himself: ‘Well, if this is your judgment, let it be so. I will simply do my own duty.” Bhusan, who ought to have been born five or six centuries hence, when the world will be moved by psychic forces, was unfortunate enough not only to be born in the nineteenth century, but also to marry a woman who belonged to that primitive age which persists through all time. He did not write a word on the subject to his wife, and determined in his mind that he would never mention it to her again. What an awful penalty!

‘Ten or twelve days later, having secured the necessary loan, Bhusan returned to his home. He imagined that Mani, after completing her mission, had by this time come back from her father’s house. And so he approached the door of the inner apartments, wondering whether his wife would show any signs of shame or penitence for the undeserved suspicion with which she had treated him.

‘He found that the door was shut. Breaking the lock, he entered the room, and saw that it was empty.

‘It seemed to him that the world was a huge cage from which the bird of love had flown away, leaving behind it all the decorations of the blood