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 Without staying there a moment more, Aesha hastily left the chamber and got into the litter.

When she reached home, it was still night. She changed her dress, and stood at the window of her room, through which the cool air was blowing in. The sky more deliciously blue than the dress she had just changed, was studded with myriads of twinkling stars;—the trees in the dark sent a murmur as their leaves were swayed by the breeze. On the top of the castle, the owl was shrieking low and deep. Below the rampart in front, on the other side, and the wall of the castle down Aesha's chamber, lay the moat filled with water, holding silently and still the image of the sky.

Sitting at the window, Aesha reflected long. She took out a ring from her finger. The gem which graced it was the home of poison. Once she thought,

"I can at once quench my thirst for good, by sucking this gem." Again she thought,

"And is it for this that God has sent me into the world? If I am not equal to this trial, why was I born a woman? And what would Jagat Singha say, on hearing it?" She thereupon put on the ring. On some thought or other, she again took it out.

"It is beyond the power of a woman to resist this  temptation; I'll cast it away."

Saying this, she threw the ring into the waters of the moat.