Page:Indira and Other Stories.pdf/80

 request to you. If you will promise me this, my friend, I can die in peace."

Her lawyer replied, "I swear to you by all that is holy that Radharani shall be to me more than a daughter. I promise this with all my heart, and you may trust to me to do my duty by my young ward."

The dying woman looked at him, and seeing the tears in his eyes, gladly accepted his assurance. A flickering smile of pleasure shone for a moment on her parched and fevered lips. This smile told the experienced lawyer that the poor woman knew that she was doomed. Kamakhya Babu now renewed his entreaties to his client to take up her abode under his roof. She might move to her old home, he said, when the legal formalities had been concluded. Her old pride and reluctance to accept obligations were due to poverty. While she was still poor, she was too proud to accept the hospitality of richer people. Now that she was restored to riches, her fierce independence had disappeared. She very gently and kindly accepted her old