Miska, through the fingers of her shielding hands, watched him go.
When he had disappeared she sprang up, clenching her teeth, and her face was contorted with anguish. She began to move aimlessly about the room, glancing at the many strange objects on the big table and fearfully at the canopied chair beside which hung the bronze bell. Finally:
"Oh, Chunda Lal! Chunda Lal!" she moaned, and threw herself face downward on the diwan, sobbing wildly.
So she lay, her whole body quivering with the frenzy of her emotions, and as she lay there, inch by inch, cautiously, the nearer door began to open. Chunda Lal looked in.
Finding the room to be occupied only by Miska, he crossed rapidly to the diwan, bending over her with infinite pity and tenderness.
"Miska!" he whispered softly.
As though an adder had touched her, Miska sprang to her feet—and back from the Hindu. Her eyes flashed fiercely.
"Ah! you! you!" she cried at him, with a repressed savagery that spoke of the Oriental blood in her veins. "Do not speak to me—look at me! Do not come near me! I hate you! God! how I hate you!"
"Miska! Miska!" he said beseechingly—"you pierce my heart! you kill me! Can you not understand——"
"Go! go!"