"We shall have to snip it off first," said Kate quite eagerly, for, in truth, she was becoming interested in her own adventures, now that she had, as it were, the control over them. "It is so long." She held up a tress as she spoke. It was beautiful hair; soft, wavy, even, and the dye--unrenewed for days--had almost gone, leaving the coppery sheen distinct.
"She would never cut it off!" said Tara to herself as she went for the razor. No woman would ever shave her head willingly. Why! when she had had it done for the first time, she had screamed and fought. Her mother-in-law had held her hands, and----
She paused at the door as she re-entered, paralyzed by what she saw. Kate had found the knife Tara used for her limited cooking, and, seated on the ground cheerfully, was already surrounded by rippling hair which she had cut off by clubbing it in her hand and sawing away as a groom does at a horse's tail.
Tara's cry made her pause. The next moment the Rajpootni had snatched the knife from her and flung it one way, the razor another, and stood before her with blazing eyes and heaving breast.
"It is foolishness!" she said fiercely. "The mems cannot be suttee. I will not have it."
Kate stared at her. "But I must----" she began.
"There is no must at all," interrupted Tara superbly; "I will find some other way." And then she bent over quickly, and Kate felt her hands upon her hair. "There is plenty left," she said with a sigh of relief. "I will plait it up so that no one will see the difference."
And she did. She put the gold bangle on again also, and by dawn the next day Kate found herself once more installed as a screened woman; but this time as a Hindoo lady under a vow of silence and solitude in the hopes of securing a son for her lord through the intercession of old Anunda, the Swâmi.
"I have told Sri Anunda," said Tara with a new respect in her manner. "I had to trust someone. And he is as God. He would not hurt a fly." She paused, then went on with a tone of satisfaction, "But he says the mem could not have been suttee, so that foolishness is well over."
"But what is to be done next, Tara?" asked Kate, looking in astonishment round the wide old garden, arched over by tall forest trees, and set round with high walls, in which she found herself. In the faint dawn she could just see glimmering straight paths parceling it out into squares; and she could hear the faint tinkle of the water runnels. "I can't surely stop here."