than a fortnight forget her promise,—she can never prove a true witness!"
Bimala. "Sir, kindly put me in mind of my promise."
"To tell me the name and lineage of your companion."
"Prince" said she, suddenly changing her tone of raillery for one of profound earnestness, "Prince, I hesitate to satisfy your curiosity, lest it should not be for your peace of mind."
The Prince mused for a while; he too renounced the light vein.
"Bimala," said he, "is the discovery of her name and lineage calculated to render me unhappy?"
"Yes, Sir," replied Bimala.
"Come what will," said the Prince, after reflecting sometime, "do you satisfy my longing. Nothing can possibly be more harassing than the intolerable suspense which I am suffering. If what you apprehend turn out to be true, that even would be preferable to my present misery, for then I shall be able to console my mind with something. Bimale! I havn't come to you, prompted by mere curiosity;—no, now I have no time to indulge in curiosity. Within this whole fortnight I have known no other bed than my steed's back. It is because my mind is exceedingly restless that I have sought you."
It was to extort this confession that the previous endeavours of Bimala were made. With the view of extorting something more, she said,
"Prince, you are well versed in political morality. Pray, consider whether you should, in this time of war, suffer your mind to be absorbed in the contemplation of a lady hard to
