When Ramesh returned to Ghazipur Sailaja's insistence stimulated Uncle to go home hunting in earnest, and he had rented for the young pair a small bungalow standing outside the town on the bank of Ganges. Kamala had at last a house of her own, and the young people were no longer dependent on Uncle's hospitality for a roof over their heads.
The property had been long without a tenant and both house and grounds surrounding the house showed signs of much neglect. The garden was a wilderness, and rooms were unswept and filthy ; but Kamala was so delighted at attaining the status of housewife that everything in her eyes was beautiful. She undertook the responsibility of superintending the construction of fireplaces in the kitchen and the alterations in the store-room adjoining it. She spent the whole day cleaning, sweeping, and tidying, and her energy was ever finding some new vent. Her radiant face and the finished dexterity with which she went about her tasks gave Ramesh new sensations of mingled wonder and delight.
Ramesh tried to establish new liberties with her by frequent conversations on some pretext or the other, and this brought Kamala faint blush to her cheeks. Umesh helped her by bringing buckets full of water to wash off the floors.
The day soon passed, but the house was not yet sufficiently clean to satisfy Kamala's exacting standards. To Ramesh's great disappointment he and Kamala had perforce to spend another night at Uncle's. As he could not further postpone any longer his enrolment at the provincial bar he departed for Allahabad next day.
Uncle himself left for Allahabad a day or two later on a visit to his eldest daughter Bidhu. On the morning of his departure Kamala invited Sailaja to a picnic meal with her at the new house, and Sailaja joined her there after giving Bipin his breakfast and seeing him off to the city.
The two friends set to work and with Umesh's help prepared a meal under the nim tree. When breakfast was over they settled down for a day-long talk under the tree. The cool shade, the tempered sunshine, and the view over the river seemed to Kamala a wonderful setting to their conversation, and the purposeless longing that had found place in her heart became as remote as the kites that circled around in the sky above them, looking like specks in the blue.
The afternoon was still young when Sailaja bestirred herself ; her husband would soon be back from the office and she must go.
"Could you not depart for once from your usual custom ?" asked Kamala ; but Saila merely smiled and shook her head while she fondled Kamala's chin. When leaving she enjoined on Kamala to return before dark.
The sun was still above the horizon when Kamala finished her house work and settled down again under the nim tree to watch the sun sinking behind the high bank across the river, where a few fishing boats were moored with masts silhouetted against the glowing sky.
Umesh came out with an excuse to engage her in conversation. "You haven't taken any pan for a long time, mother," he said. "I got some ready at the other house and brought it along with me," and he handed her some pan wrapped in paper.
Kamala awoke to the consciousness that dusk was falling and she sprang to her feet.
"Uncle Chakrabartti has sent a carriage for you," added Umesh. She entered the bungalow for a last look round before driving home. She stopped to place the packet of pan on the mantelpiece, and was on the point of resuming her perambulations when her eye caught her own name in Ramesh's hand-writing on the paper of the parcel.
"Where did you find that paper ?" she asked Umesh.
"It was lying in a corner of master's room. I picked it up when the floor was being swept."
Kamala took it up and began to read. It was the letter in which Ramesh had made a clean breast to Hemamalini and which with his carelessness he must have thrown aside.
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