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Piari a terrible way my jesting hope would be realized. I could hear Piari's tearful voice, 'Holy Durga! O Durga!' coming from inside the tent. I took the path that led to the cremation-grounds without further delay.

All the way my mind was filled with thoughts of Piari. I hardly noticed the long, dark path through the mango orchard or the embankment that I had to cross by the side of the river. All the way I thought of the strange and mysterious world which we call a woman's mind. The thought that the frail little girl of my boyhood days had brought me her daily garlands of bainchi fruits as tokens of childish love, that she had silently worshipped me then, and that she claimed to have loved me ever since—all this was a surprise to me. But it was something else that perplexed me, not that she could love me, for I knew that love often takes unexpected forms, but that in her ignoble life, so full of falsehoods and insincerities, she should have been able to keep a corner free for the love which she called her 'treasure from the hand of God'. How had she kept it alive? And how could she bear all the artificial poses and false utterances of her daily life?

'Bap!'

I was startled out of my thoughts. Looking in front of me, I saw an immense plain full of grey sand, through which a narrow stream meandered into the distance. Throughout the plain were scattered clumps of kash plants. All of a sudden my mind fancied them to be men, invited on that terrible, moonless night to see the dance of spirits, taking their seats on the carpet of the