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50 But the grove was filled with the voice of lamentation. Desire, the beautiful wife of Love, was not to be consoled, that one flash of anger had not destroyed her with Modon. And she called on Spring, as her husband's friend, to build the funeral-fire in which she might die and follow him. At this moment, however, the voice of Indra rang through the wood. "Sweet lady!" it pleaded, "do nothing rash! It is true that you are separated from your husband for a while. But in a few months the work he began here will be completed, and when Mahadeva weds Uma, He will of His free grace restore the life of Modon also. Only wait patiently." And Spring prevailed upon Roti to rely on the promise of Indra and wait.

[True enough, certain months afterwards, the spirit of her husband was given back to her. But his body had been destroyed. So, since then, walks Love invisible amongst men and gods.]

And Uma, left alone in the forest, realised that all her beauty had failed to prevail upon her Husband to forget her as Sati for one moment. Now, therefore, she must make a stronger appeal, and of a strangely different kind.

Then she left her princely home and went away to a hermitage, far from the dwellings of men, to live. A rough grass girdle and the covering of birch-bark became all her clothing. She slept on