So leading the King by the hand they went together to the palace, the mind of the Maharaja quieted and subdued as after a storm the billows sink to rest.
And within the palace the Perfected One looked for Another, but she was not there, for her very life beat against her body in agony, remembering, remembering, and she said in her heart:
“I will not go. I cannot go. If I am of any value in his eyes, I, the mother of his son, he will come to me. I cannot go to him.”
So, when a little time had passed, the Perfected One arose, and attended by the two mightiest of his disciples and followed by the Maharaja went to the Palace of his wife, and as he went, he said:
“Monks, if this lady should embrace me, do not hinder her, though it be against the rule.”
And pacing silently beside him, the two comprehended the wisdom and compassion of the Lord, bowing their heads.
And they entered the hall where the Princess stood unveiled, the glory of her hair shorn, clad in a coarse robe of yellow resembling his own, and divested of all jewels and splendours, and she stood like the marble image of a woman as he entered, pale in the shadows.
Then, seeing him, suddenly love and manifold anguish broke in a freshet in her heart as when the melting snows fill Rohini until she floods her banks; and pride and love, each stabbed to the heart, strove within her, and with piteous eyes she looked upon her Lord once so near and now so far, as he stood calmly regarding her with a look she could not understand, and love had the victory, and she ran to him and falling on the ground laid her face upon his feet and embraced them weeping most bitterly.
And there was silence, none hindering or speaking, and he looked down upon her.
So she lay.