Bipin and Ramesh drove straight to the bungalow in Ramesh's carriage and tackled Bishan again. By their united efforts they succeeded at last in eliciting from him the following meagre details :
Later in the afternoon Kamala had started off alone towards the river. Bishan had offered to accompany her, but she had declined his escort and had given him a rupee. He had then taken his post at the gate to guard the bungalow and while he was there a toddy-tapper had come along carrying a pot of a fresh-drawn toddy, frothing and bubbling over. As to what happened after that Bishan had no clear recollection !
He pointed out the path which Kamala had taken on her way towards the Ganges. Ramesh, Bipin and Umesh set forth in search of Kamala, Umesh darting frenzied glances from side to side. The Three reached the river-bank, halted there on the simmering sand in the morning sun, but not soul was in sight.
Umesh called aloud, "O mother, where are you ?" but there was no response except from the echo which flung back the words from the high bank across the wide river.
Prowling around Umesh espied a white object in the distance, and darting towards it, found a bunch of keys wrapped in a handkerchief lying at the water's edge.
It was indeed Kamala's bunch of keys. Close to where the keys lay the stream had left a small deposit of alluvium and in the soft mud they descried the deep prints of two little feet leading towards the water. A glistening object in the shallow water caught Umesh's roving eye. He drew it out and it proved to be a small enamel brooch mounted in gold, Ramesh's gift to Kamala.
Realizing that all the indications pointed clearly towards the Ganges, Umesh broke down completely. He leapt into the shallow water shrieking, "Mother, O mother !" and plunged again and again below the surface like a mad creature, groping with his hands at the bottom till the water was turbid.
Ramesh was too dazed to utter a word and it was Bipin who called to Umesh :
"What are you doing ? Come out of that !"
"I won't come out," sputtered Umesh. "Oh, mother, how could you go and leave me like that ?"
Bipin had really no call to be nervous, for the boy could swim like a fish and could hardly have drowned himself if he had tried. He wearied at last of floundering in the water, and emerging from the river, wallowed on the sand, weeping bitterly.
Bipin laid his hand on Ramesh's shoulder to arouse him from his stupor.
"Come, Ramesh Babu," he said, "we're only wasting time here. We'll send word to the police and they'll make all possible inquiries."
No one in Sailaja's entourage had any food or sleep that day and the house resounded with cries of grief.
Fishermen were engaged to drag the river thoroughly and the police scoured the whole country side. Special inquiries were made at the railway station, but no Bengali girl answering to Kamala's description had been seen entering the night train.
Uncle arrived that afternoon, and when he heard a detailed account of the occurrence and of Kamala's strange behavior prior to her disappearance, he became convinced that she had committed suicide by drowning.
So utterly stupefied was Ramesh by the catastrophe that he could not shed a single tear.
He returned to the river after sunset, and standing on the spot where the keys had been found, gazed once more at the little footprints. Then he removed his shoes, girt up his waist-cloth, and wading out into the river, took from its box the necklace that he had brought from Allahabad and flung it into the midstream.
He remained no longer in Ghazipur, but the inmates of Uncle's house were so prostrated by the sad event that at the time no one missed him.
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