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124 happy, but cursed be the hour when I was born! I cannot even know what it is that makes you unhappy."

Mathur was touched. "It is useless now to conceal from you that I am unhappy," he confessed at last, "but do not grieve that I confide not my troubles to you. Human ears will not hear them."

As Tara heard these words, a fleeting expression of intense pain shot across her pallid but noble features, but the next moment she stood calm and apparently without emotion.

"Give me one poor request then," said she now calmly, "will you promise?" A wild and hollow shriek like that of a screech-owl interrupted her words. Her husband started to his feet at the sound.

"Why do you start?" enquired his wife. "It is a screech-owl only, though certainly the sound was fearful to hear."

The sound came borne once again in still more fearful notes upon the wind. Before Tara could speak, Mathur bounded out of the room.

Tara was surprised. She was certain the shriek was from a screech-owl, or if not, of nothing more fearful, and to her mind, there was nothing in it to apprehend except as a sound of ill omen, which however people daily hear and tolerate. She had also some perception that the sound they had heard, rather bore a resemblance to that of the night-bird that presented its unmistakable notes in their reality. Her curiosity was awakened, and she came out of her apartment.