One evening Ramesh playfully seized her coiled hair, shook it and remarked:
"Susila, I don't like the way your hair is done to-day."
The girle sat up. "Look here, why do you all persist in calling me Susila?" she asked. Ramesh stared at her in astonishment, at a loss to know what she meant by this question."Changing my name won't change my luck," she went on. "I've been unlucky since I was a child and I'll be unlucky all my life,"
Ramesh's heart gave a throb of dismay and the colour left his face. The conviction was suddenly forced upon him that there had been a terrible mistake somewhere.
"Why do you say you've been unlucky all your life ?" he asked.
"My father died before I was born, and I wasn't six months old when my mother died too. I had a very bad time in my uncle's house. Then all of a sudden I heard that you had turned up from somewhere and taken a fancy to me. We were married two days later, and you know what happened after that !.He dreaded to put another question, and he tried to thrust aside what he had heard as a dream, a delusion. Finding Ramesh apparently oblivious of her existance the girl nudged him gently. " Sleeping?" she queried.
"No," said Ramesh, but he gave no further response, and quietely dropped off to sleep.After he woke up he could understand that a secret Fate was written in their life's destiny. How was it possible that so dreadful a destiny could be masked by such loveliness of her? Ramesh artfully asked her about what she first saw in the marriage It came to be known that she not only looked up to see face she didn't even have a chance to know his name due to the hurried way the wedding was performed. By casual enquiry he could find her name as Kamala and literate enough to write her name as Srimati Kamala and her uncle's name Srijukta Taruni Charan Chtopadhyay, and her village Dhobapukur. He even amassed number of facts about the girl's former life,
Ramesh started visuavalizing future plan of action. Her husband had in all probability been drowned. Even if he could find out where the husband's people lived and send Kamala to them it was very doubtful if they receive her, and it would not be fair to send her back to her uncle's house. What sort of reception would she have from society if it were known that she had been living all this time with another man as his wife? Where could she find sanctuary ? Even if her husband were alive was it likely that he would wish or dare to take her back ?
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