"Gently, Ananda! The Hindu in you dies hard. You do well to be angry, but don't mistake anger for revenge."
The hand that was laid upon his shoulder held in check the tempestuous wrath.
"Forgive me, sir. Wrong done against myself I can forgive—but this!" He looked down at his wife.
"They believed that you had drowned yourself, so successfully have you been hidden," said Alderbury. "And they considered themselves justified in their action."
Ananda lifted his drooping, but happy, wife to her feet and kept his arm about her. His anger melted and he forgot his wrath in the consciousness of her presence.
"How did she come here," he asked in calmer tones.
"I brought her," replied Alderbury.
"You, sir," repeated Ananda in surprise.
"Yes; your friend Bopaul must have interested himself in your affairs; for it was he who met me on the road this afternoon and begged me to take his widowed sister to the mission house and keep her there. He deceived me and took me in completely."
A smile dispersed the frown of anger that had rested on Ananda's face.