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Rh dumb in astonishment. After a while he looked up and asked with a slight acerbity in his tone.

“Why, didn’t you send me timely information about it?”

“Why, what’s the good of that?”

"What’s the good, you ask? You are a woman, I should not boast to you. If you had informed me in time, something could have been done."

“How could I know that you would stir in the matter?”

“Why, don’t you know that I owe everything to Chandrashekhar?”

“I know that. But I have heard it said that people are apt to forget their previous history in their days of prosperity.”

Protap grew impatient and speechless with indignation and abruptly went away. Sundari was very much pleased at this sudden outburst.

Next day with only a cook and a servant, Protap left for Monghyr. The servant was Ramcharan. Where he went, Protap did not disclose. He only said to Rupasi, “I am going in quest of Chandrashekhar and Shaibalini. I will not return till I ascertain their whereabouts.”

The house at Monghyr where the ascetic had left Dalani, was Protap’s lodging-house.

Sundari stayed with her sister for some time and railed at Shaibalini to her heart's content. Morning, noon and night, she would lay herself out in demonstrating to Rupasi that a woman more wicked and ill-fated than Shaibalini was never born. One day Rupasi remarked :-—

"All that is true no doubt, but why do you bother yourself by running about for her?” DM, C 4