Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/228

 to name it, but for many months after the discovery little change was noticeable. Then, as is its wont, the leprosy took a forward stride; then halted for a space, only to advance once more, but now with more lagging feet. Thus, though the physical alterations wrought by the ravages of the discase were increas- ingly terrible to Minah, who marked each change take place gradually, step by step and from day to day, beneath her eyes, underlying the deformed and featureless face, the blind eye-sockets, the aimless, swaying limbs with their maimed and discoloured extrenuities, she saw as clearly as ever the face, the glance, the gestures that had been distinctive of hier husband. And she loved this formless, mutilated thing with all the old passionate devotion, and with a new tenderness that awoke all her maternal instincts: for to this childless woman Mamat was now both husband and the baby that had never been born to her.

He was utterly dependent upon her now. Twice daily she carried him upon her back down to the river's edge, and bathed him with infinite care. To her there seemed nothing remarkable in the act. She had done it for the first time one day long before, when his feet were peculiarly sore and uncomfortable, had done it laughingly, half in jest, and he had laughed, too, joining in her inerriment. But now he had become so helpless that there was no other way of conveying him riverward, and she daily bore him on her back unthinkingly, as a matter of course. The weight of her burden diminished as time went on.

In the same way she had gradually fallen into the