"They put me in a cage, and I cried."
"You will not be put in a cage this time," replied Ramanund with a superior smile; "you will come with me, and we will go to Benares."
Her face came up to his this time anxiously. "Benares? Why Benares?"
"Because good and evil come alike from Benares," he answered exultantly. "Mayhap you have been there, Anunda, and seen the evil, the superstition. But it is in Benares also that the true faith lives still. My friend has written to his friends there, and they will receive us with open arms; virtuous women will shelter you till the marriage arrangements are complete."
She shook her head faintly. "We cannot be married--I am a widow," she repeated obstinately; "but I will go with you all the same." Then seeing a certain reproach in his face she frowned. "Dost think I am wicked, my lord? I am not wicked at all; but Mai Kâli gave me a lover, not a husband." Here the frown relaxed into a brilliant smile. "My husband is dead, and I do not care for dead men. I care for you, my lord, my god."
Ramanund's brain whirled again, but he clung to the first part of her speech as a safeguard.
"You are foolish to say we cannot be married. If you read the newspapers you would see that widows--child-widows such as you are, heart's-delight--are married, regularly married by priests of our religion. Those old days of persecution are over, Anunda. The law has legalised such unions, and no one dare say a word."
A comical look came to her brilliant little face. "And my lord's mother--will she say nothing?"
The question pierced even Ramanund's coat of culture. He fully intended telling his revered parent of his approaching marriage, and the thought of doing so, even in the general way which he proposed to himself, was fraught with sheer terror. What then would it be when he had to present her with this daughter-in-law in the concrete? He took refuge from realities by giving a lecture on the individual rights of man, while Anunda played like a child with the chumpak garland with which she had adorned him.
And so with a grey glimmer the rapid dawn began to dispute possession of those dim arches with the smoky flare of the lamps, making those two rise reluctantly and steal with echoing footsteps past the malignant half-seen figure behind the closed fretwork doors. The blood-red glint of those outstretched arms with their suggestion of clasping and closing on all within their reach, must have roused a reminiscence of that past defiance in the young schoolmaster's brain; for he paused before the shrine, his arms still round Anunda, to say triumphantly: