Tara advanced and touched their feet in token of reverential submission and salutation. By the lady, whose evident rank had attracted Tara first, the action was received at least without repugnance, and perhaps with interest; but by the other with marked aversion—she drew back her feet as though to prevent pollution, and shrank aside, evidently to avoid contact.
"Thou art welcome, daughter of Vyas Shastree," said the one: "peace be with thee."
"And that gilded thing is called a widow and a Moorlee!" cried the other, with a scornful glance at Tara. "O sister, admit her not! Why has she any hair? Why is she more like a bride than a widow?—a harlot rather than a virtuous woman?"
"I am a widow and an orphan," returned Tara meekly, sinking down and trembling violently, as she addressed the first speaker. "I have been saved from dishonour, lady. O be kind to me! I have no one on earth to protect me now. They are all gone—all—and may God help me!"
"Your mother was one of the Durpeys of Wye, was she not?" asked the Envoy's wife, whose name was Amba Bye. "Do they know of thee?"
"I do not know, lady," returned Tara; "they have never been to us, nor we to them; but my mother was a Durpey, and used to speak of them."
"Her father lately married that wild sister of Moro Trimmul's, and Sukya Bye is sure to know her," said the widow.
"O, not to her!—not to her!" cried Tara passionately—"do not give me to her? I beseech you by your honour, by your children, lady, by all you love on earth, not to give me to her. Do with me as ye will yourselves, ye are matrons, but——"
"And why not, girl?" asked the widow, interrupting her.
"Peace! Pudma Bye," said her brother, now entering, and seeing that his sister's question had caused pain, "the girl hath had a sore trial; listen to her, ere thou art hard on her. Speak, daughter, let us know from thine own lips how and why thou wast suffering violence from Moro Trimmul."