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 Swami's orders", replied the raja, "I appointed people to watch over you. Then it was that I instructed Amala to tempt you with the offer of the necklace. Finally, knowing that to-day your long probation is concluded, I sent for your husband and told him that I was acquainted with all the strange circumstances of your lives, I told him that to-day his wife would at last be entrusted to him. 'With all due submission to your highness's orders,' he said, 'I have no desire whatever to see her. Better far that we should not meet.' I replied, nevertheless, 'Such are my orders.' He of course agreed that he had no course but to obey. 'But,' he objected, 'it is your highness only who knows what her life has been during these years and whether she is fitted to take her place in an honest gentleman's home. I take it that a personage of your highness's rank and reputation would not ask me to live with a woman who has been the object of scandal.' In reply I bade him leave his ring with me, telling him that by its means I would make test of your fidelity to your