Page:Stories of Bengalee life - Prabhat Kumar Mukerji.pdf/242

230 were to tell you fully why I do not eat oranges you would comprehend."

Madan Babu's eyes were clouded; after some coughing, he said—"Will you listen?" He spoke in a very low tone.

"Say on,"—I said.

He began—"It is now twenty years since I killed a man."

I shivered. "Killed a man?"

"Murdered! Certainly. That is called murder. Listen! In the December of a certain year I went to Calcutta to make purchases, with a view to giving my eldest daughter in marriage in January. I alighted at a boarding house used by college students. There was no vacancy in any room except in one occupied by a fever patient. His brother-in-law shared it with him. The sister's husband's name was Kedar, the brother-in-law was named Prabodh. Kedar was a man from East Bengal, of about twenty-two years. Prabodh was two or three years younger. PradodhPrabodh [sic] neglected attendance at college, and assiduously nursed his brother-in-law. Hour by hour he gave him his physic, took his temperature, pressed his head and limbs, and rose several times in the night to attend to him. For some days the patient was very restless, then there came a day of ease. The fever visibly decreased. I was to return home on the