Page:Stories of Bengalee life - Prabhat Kumar Mukerji.pdf/166

154 supper over, bedtime came. Placing their bed before the open venetians Binod and Sarat Kumari lay down. The garden lay bathed in moonlight; a pleasant air was blowing.

Binod was more silent than usual. Sarat Kumari said—"Of what are you thinking?"

"Of much trouble."

"What trouble,"—the girl asked, anxiously.

Binod answered—"If I tell you, you won't trust me any longer."

Sarat said—"Can a wife distrust her husband?"

Binod kept his eyes on his wife's face. Her hair lay in loose curls upon her temples. Sincerity beamed from her eyes.

Binod said—"I am an evil man. I have deceived you all."

The girl looked at her husband in silence. Binod continued—"I have no employment in Motihari, neither have I 120 rupees a month."

In great astonishment Sarat said—"Where, then, do you work?"

"I have no employment. I was in the railway office at Allahabad, but I lost that post. Seeing no other resource, I thought I would get some money by marrying, and so used this stratagem. I knew that if I succeeded in effecting a marriage by means of the pretended excellent post, discovery