When Kamala reached the bank of the Ganges the sun had already sunk to the verge of the pallid sky. Facing the oncoming dusk Kamala saluted the departing deity. She sprinkled drops of sacred water on her head, then stepping in to the stream and raising a handful of water in her joined palms, she bestowed a libation on the holy river and threw flowers into the current.
She bowed herself in adoration of all the heavenly powers. As she raised her head from the ground she remembered one more being to whom she owed worship. She had never aspired to look upon his face. On that one night which she had spent by his side her eyes had never rested even on his feet. In the bridal chamber he had spoken a word or two to her girl-companions, but his accents had scarcely penetrated the barriers of the veil and of her own reserve. Now she stood at the river's brink she strove intensely but unsuccessfully to recall the sound of his voice.
The night had been far spent before the wedding ceremonies were over. So utterly wearied had she been that she slept immediately, when and where she could not tell. She awoke to find a young married neighbor shaking her out of her drowsiness with shrieks of laughter. She was alone on the couch. In this last moment of her existence her mind could grasp nothing tangible to remind her of the lord of that existence. His personality was a closed book to her. Face, voice, visible token, there was nothing that she could recall.
The letter that Ramesh had written to Hemamalini was still fastened into the corner of her dress. She drew it out and, sitting on the sand, re-read one of the sheets in the twilight. It was the portion of the letter which mentioned her husband ; there were no details, only the fact that his name was Nalinaksha Chatopadhyay, that he had been a doctor at Rangpur, and that Ramesh could find no trace of him anywhere. She searched for the remaining sheets but they were missing.
Nalinaksha ! the name was balm to the wound in her soul. It seemed to fill her heart to overflowing, to take to itself an impalpable body and pervade her whole being. Tears flowed freely, melting the crust of her resolution and lightening the intolerable burden of her sorrow. A voice within her spoke ; "The void is filled, the darkness has lifted ; now I know that I too am part of the living world"; and she cried fervently, "If I would be a true wife to him I must live to prostrate myself at his feet. Nothing will rob me of this guerdon. While life endures he is not lost to me. The Lord has preserved me from death that I may serve him !"
She took the bunch of keys from the kerchief in which they were wrapped and flung them from her. Then she recollected that she wore as a fastening a brooch that Ramesh had given her, and this too she hastily undid and cast into the stream. Then, turning westward, she set forth. Whither she was bound and how she would set about her quest she had no clear conception. She only knew that she must go forward, that she could not tarry a moment longer where she was.
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