"She hath returned already."
The old woman rose with a gesture of despair.
"Say not so! Break not thy mother's heart with idle words. 'Tis but the chills, and thou hast them often. The powder will cure them."
"Perhaps 'tis so," he replied, listlessly. "But I have seen her. Ere ever I knew of her death she met me on the common as I rode home. Nay, weep not so soon; the truth will be told ere long, and there will be time enough for tears then."
"There will be no need to weep at all, my son," she said, crushing down her own dread in order to lessen his, and fiercely determining to shed no more tears till life held nothing else.
She kept her word; though, as the days passed on, even her wilful blindness could not fail to see how the strong man grew weaker and weaker. Her heart stood still with fear, as she watched for the sleep of exhaustion which followed each successive attack of fever and ague, before stealing away to seize the opportunity for the charms she dared not work save in secrecy.
Indeed, the subject was barred between them; and even when the fever fiend held him in its grip, Gunesh Chund never alluded again to the fatal ghost.
He put aside the saukin-mhora which, in her clutching at straws, she would have had him wear as a talisman, with quite a broad laugh.
"Wouldst have me altogether a woman, mother?" he asked, cheerfully. "I deemed instead I was too soft for thee. But see! whether it be the chills or the other thing, Death will come if he is on the road."
For all the courage of his words, a conviction that he was doomed dulled his interest in all things save his fields, and when he grew too weak to find his way there and back his patience broke into restlessness.